The Clammer and the Submarine Part 4

"I'm glad you think so," she flung back over her shoulder, "but I am not so sure. I really think that it would be better for Tidda if she were left more to her own devices--she has plenty--but I just can't do it."

We had got down to the sh.o.r.e, and Elizabeth turned to me.

"I am always saying things," she said, "that I don't mean. It is one of the results of too much freedom."

"So am I," I replied, "and this is one of them."

And Elizabeth looked at me queerly, and laughed suddenly, and looked away. I wondered if she understood. I wondered further about her. A reputation for unconsidered speech is the best of protections for secrets. I did not believe that she was generally guilty of unconsidered speech. And we had come to the clam beds, but the bank was too wet to sit on, and we stood around until I found some stones that were dry, and we sat on the stones in a row, like three crows. Eve said nothing to Tidda and the Sands girl, but watched them as they pulled off their stockings. And, Tidda having trouble with hers, as usual, Eve got up from her stone and helped her.

While Eve was busy with stockings, I spoke.

"Miss Radnor," I said, "what--"

She was gazing fixedly at the water over the clam beds--there was about a foot of it--and her thoughts were far away. But at the sound of her name she started almost imperceptibly, and looked at me, and smiled.

"My name is Elizabeth," she said, interrupting. "Perhaps you didn't know it. Yes, that is a hint."

Her eyes were like deep pools under a summer sun, and all sorts of colors played over them, flashing and sparkling gently and merrily, so that there was no telling what depths lay beneath, or what in the depths--except humor. They seemed to be looking always for a joke, and usually finding one too good to tell. What else they were looking for I did not know, but there was something.

"Thank you," I replied. "I take hints on occasion. And my name is Adam. That is a hint too. If you can reconcile the use of it with the respect due to age,--to a man too old to fight,--I shall be glad. It is a very old name and quite respectable."

She nodded and laughed. "Thank you, Adam. But you were going to ask me something."

"I was going to ask you, Elizabeth, if you know what has become of Bobby. We haven't seen him for a long time."

The pools flashed and sparkled once more. "Why do you ask me? Am I Bobby's keeper?"

"You seemed to be. And you transferred him, and we haven't seen him since."

"Captain Fergus transferred him. I have no doubt that he will turn up in time."

Eve had finished with the stockings, and she came and sat down again upon her stone, while the children splashed noisily into that foot of water. Tidda had a stout stick, and she began immediately to poke about with it.

"Who will turn up in time?" asked Eve. "What are you talking about?"

"Bobby," I answered. "I wish I could share Elizabeth's faith. I must notify Bobby."

"I think you will have an opportunity," said Elizabeth, "if you have a little patience."

"I will notify you meanwhile, Elizabeth. The Clam Beds Protective Company meets here next Sat.u.r.day at nine o'clock. In uniform, with arms and equipment. If you lack anything, speak to Eve. I'm sorry to make it quite so early, but the tide, you know--and Eve has set the day."

"I'm going to have a birthday party for Jack Ogilvie, Elizabeth. It's a little late, but I didn't know in time, and Jimmy and Bobby and Ogilvie can come then, I think. I wish you'd tell me something more about him."

"About Jack? What shall I tell you? I've known him always, since he was knee-high to a gra.s.shopper. He's as good as there is made. His family are nice people, with a very moderate income, just about enough to keep them going, and not enough to put him through college, although they would be willing to sacrifice a good deal to do it. But Jack prefers to put himself through, and he was doing it very well until he went into the navy. He has been preparing for that for a year or more. He doesn't make nearly as much in the navy, even as an ensign--but I don't know about that. I guess he does. An ensign's pay is pretty good for a boy of twenty-one."

"And his father," Eve pursued; "what does he do? Is he in some great office, grinding away for Jack?"

Elizabeth smiled again. "No. He is a country doctor, and a very good one. I don't know what the town would do without him. But a country doctor, you know, can't make much."

"I'm glad," said Eve.

"Why? Because he can't make much?"

Eve laughed. "Glad that he's a doctor. I wish I could manage to swell his income."

Tidda and the Sands girl had been pursuing the elusive clam with some success. Tidda's hands were full of clams which she had dug out with the stick and her hands, burrowing into the sand and mud under the water, and her skirt was wet, and her sleeves were wet nearly to the shoulder. I called Eve's attention to that fact as she splashed out, ran to the bank, and deposited her clams in an old rusty tin can with jagged edges, which she drew from some hiding place evidently in familiar use. She must have done that same thing many times, and this was the first that we knew of it.

Eve glanced up and smiled.

"Never mind, Adam. Let them have their fun. I'll put dry clothes on her when we get home." Then she turned again to Elizabeth. "And Olivia," she said, "is--"

"I think," said Elizabeth, interrupting, "that Olivia is coming now."

As she spoke there was a slight rustling in the path through the greenery, and Olivia emerged upon the edge of the bank. She was stepping lightly, diffident and hesitating, a hand over her heart. It was like a young doe coming out of the woods.

"Oh!" she said. "I beg your pardon."

And Elizabeth laughed silently, mostly with her eyes; but Eve rose and went to meet Olivia.

"What's the joke, Elizabeth?" I asked in her ear. "Tell me, won't you?"

She turned merry eyes to mine. "Olivia's the joke," she said. "I can't explain, but if you knew her as well as I do--"

She did not finish, for Eve was speaking.

"We were just thinking of you, Olivia."

"How very nice of you! May I come?"

She advanced--still with that diffident and hesitating step like a doe's. I got up and offered her my stone.

Olivia looked startled; but Olivia had a way of looking startled, so it seemed.

"Oh," she protested, "oh, I don't want to take your seat."

"Don't feel that you are putting me to an inconvenience," I said. "That stone is harder than it was. I am sorry that we can offer you nothing better than a stone, but it is all we have."

And Olivia laughed politely, and took my stone, and looked about.

"Clams!" she cried. "I have dug clams."

"Many?" I asked.

Olivia looked up at me and laughed again. "Oh, a good many," she replied, "in all sorts of places; and baked them too."

"A recruit for our company," I said, looking at Elizabeth and Eve. "Will you join the company?" I asked Olivia.

"I shall be glad to," she answered. "What is it?"

And Eve laughed, and I explained, and Olivia seemed delighted. But Elizabeth was more amused than ever.

"What is it now, Elizabeth?"

"Olivia knows," said she.

"Elizabeth!" Olivia cried from her stone. "I didn't either come for--"

She stopped suddenly, her hand over her mouth.

"If she came for that purpose, Elizabeth," I said, "she is to be commended. Do you think that Captain Fergus and Mrs. Fergus would join? Would you speak to them about it?"

And Elizabeth signified that she would, and there was other noise in the path through the greenery, a noise which was something more than a rustling, and Old Goodwin appeared, and behind him came Bobby. When Bobby appeared, I looked hard at Elizabeth, but I could detect no sign of confusion. She is so sunburned and tanned that a flush would not show anyway.

"What did you tell me about Bobby, Elizabeth?"

She looked up. "I don't remember. Nothing that wasn't true."

Her eyes were filled with light, but she veiled them quickly, and Bobby wandered over to us. Old Goodwin had sat him down on the bank, and Tidda had put into his hands some more clams dripping mud, and was asking his advice, her elbows on his knees; and he listened soberly and with interest.

Eve told Bobby of the meeting of our company for the next week and the party.

He turned to me. "Doesn't that notice have to be in writing?" he asked.

I shook my head. "You'd better accept it. The whole company will turn out. It's to be a party for Ogilvie--birthday party."

And Olivia p.r.i.c.ked up her ears at that, and listened shamelessly while Eve told Bobby about it.

"That's very good of you, Eve," he said, when she had finished. "I'll tell Jimmy, and I'll get word to Ogilvie. We can come unless something turns up. Something may turn up, you know, at any minute. We never know. If a fleet of submarines should get over here, and should start getting caught in our traps we'd have to go."

"Traps all set, Bobby?" I asked.

"Set but not baited," he replied. "I'm looking for bait now, likely-looking little pigs, Adam, and for somebody to feed 'em, and keep 'em squealing. It would be interesting work, and a pleasant sail every day. If you were really patriotic you'd be glad to do that much for your country. But you won't. I see it in your eye. I'll have to do it myself."

And he heaved a prodigious sigh, and turned to Elizabeth and Olivia, and he began to talk lightly with them; and Olivia's face was all eagerness and light and gentleness. She was beautiful so. Bobby noticed it, and smiled at her, and talked to her for a minute or so, and she listened in a sort of silent rapture, which Elizabeth observed. And Bobby, glancing at Elizabeth, saw the changing light in those two deep pools, and saw her half-smile of amus.e.m.e.nt, and forgot what he was saying to Olivia, and stopped.

"You know, Miss Radnor," he said, forgetting the rest of us, "I have to go in half an hour." It was a sort of challenge.

She nodded, still smiling that half-smile of amus.e.m.e.nt. "I know."

"Well?"

Thereupon Eve rose quietly from her stone, and dragged Olivia up from hers, much against her will, and they wandered off to see the children at their clamming; but she gave me a significant look as she went. So I obediently drifted off along the sh.o.r.e. I was sorry to go, for I would have liked to hear what followed. And I drifted back again, and to and fro, like a shadow, but always Bobby was talking earnestly to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth looked up at Bobby, and laughed and shook her head. And at last Elizabeth rose, and they two wandered off down the sh.o.r.e toward Old Goodwin's stone pier. I caught a word or two of Bobby's as they went. I thought he was asking her what she was. "What are you?" was all I heard; and she replied, very probably, that she was a teacher of swimming and dancing. And she turned and waved her hand to us, and they were gone.

Then Eve stirred, and called Tidda, who came hugging close her old tin can dripping mud down upon her dress. Olivia was already on the path to the great house, but Old Goodwin turned back.

"Adam," he said, smiling, "I have retired from business. I thought you might like to know. It seemed as good a time as any."

It was what I have been urging upon him these ten years.

"There will be enough to keep me occupied," he added, answering my unspoken question. "A matter that I have in mind. I will tell you about it soon."

And he turned again, and was gone up the path.

I walked with Eve along the sh.o.r.e, and I wondered. I must have been mistaken in those words of Bobby's. How could he have asked her that?

VI.

On that second day of June it befell that I was stirring early, and I was out at dawn, for I had much to do; but I did not do it then, as I had meant. When I was come out into the fresh breath of morning, and was walking over the dewy gra.s.s to my shed, of a sudden my soul was drenched with the sense of a great truth, even as my feet and legs were drenched with dew. And the truth was this: All work is useless. It is but a waste of time that might be better spent in watching the sun come up through the mists of morning to rule over his kingdom; or in seeing him sink behind the bearded hills in the golden haze of evening. At either time the old earth is at peace, and the waters stilled or just waking, but the dawn is the better. I would contemplate the majesty of the sunrise and consider upon it. It restoreth my soul.

So my cares slipped from off my shoulders as a garment, and I turned my steps to the steep path, and came to the sh.o.r.e, and over the sand and pebbles to my clam beds at the point; and I hurried, for I would not miss the rising of the sun. But I did miss it, and saw the sun shining through a thick haze, with his lower edge just risen out of the sea. The tide was high, and the waters whispered gently at my feet, and stretched away in all manner of opalescent colors until, toward the south, they were lost in a tender pearl-gray that seemed to cover everything.

One needs to be alone at such a time; alone or with one other. And Eve had not divined my intention any more than I had, but she had been sleeping sweetly, with one white arm curved above her head upon the pillow, and she had smiled in her sleep, and I had withdrawn cautiously and quietly. She supposed that I would be working at my preparations. Working! And I laughed silently to myself. But I wished that I had known what I should do. Perhaps she would not have minded being waked.

So I stood there, scarcely moving, looking out into that tender pearl-gray, until the sun was half an hour high or more. Some of the magic was gone, and I knew that it was to be hot; hot and moist and sticky. And a fisherman crawled out into the bay, and then another, their sails hanging in wrinkles. They were not afraid of submarines. Who could be afraid of submarines in that quiet, opalescent water, that pearl-gray haze? Submarines there!

I laughed and turned away. Work no longer seemed so useless a waste of time. I must be at mine. There are many things to be seen to besides the digging of clams. I marched back along the sh.o.r.e, and up the path, and through the wet gra.s.s. The gra.s.s must be cut. Usually I keep it cut, but there is a dearth this year of men who work by the day, and I can get no man to help me. What is done I shall have to do myself.

So I came to the hole scooped in the ground just without the shadow of my pine, and I cleared it out, the acc.u.mulation of the winter, down to the lining of great stones. And I brought out the plain wooden benches, and the great pine planks laid on wooden horses, to serve as tables, and I set them in their places, and I rubbed the tops of the tables till they were all shining white. And a big wagon came with a load of seaweed--rockweed--all fresh and wet and dripping, its little brown bladders soft and swollen, and the load of wet weed was dumped in a slippery pile. There were chickens also to come, and lobsters, and fish, whatever kinds the fishermen brought in, but no bluefish caught in the bay these many years; and many loaves of brown bread. But all those things would come later, and I had no concern with them save to bake them--but not the brown bread. So I looked about, and seeing all things done that were to do at that time, I went in to breakfast.

I was restless, and dragged Eve out, and we went prowling along the sh.o.r.e, although it yet lacked an hour of the time set for the a.s.sembling of our company; but there was Old Goodwin leaning against a tree above the clam beds, gazing out over the water.

I followed his gaze, and I saw his ocean steamer lying there, at anchor. She had come in since sunrise, for the water then had been empty of steam yachts. And men were swarming over her rail and were getting settled upon stagings--planks--that hung there.

Old Goodwin turned to us. "Good-morning," he said, smiling his quiet smile of peace.

"Good-morning," I returned. "It seems like afternoon to me. It is a long time since sunrise. Your boat wasn't there then. What are they doing to her? Painting a gold band around her?"

He smiled once more. "No gold," he said. "She needed paint. I thought that gray would be a good color. It wears well, and doesn't show bruises."

"He has given her to the navy," Eve whispered. Her eyes were shining.

"I thought I might as well," said Old Goodwin as if apologizing. "I have given up New York--for a time anyway--and shall not need her. That is the matter I spoke of. I shall want your advice, Adam."

"Now?" I asked. "It is rather sudden."

He laughed. "Not now. There is hardly time. There comes the Arcadia."

I had seen her looming through the haze. She seemed to be coming rapidly, and there was little wind. I mentioned it.

"Fergus had a motor put in her this year," Old Goodwin answered. "He hated to. Said it was spoiling a beautiful boat, but he had to do it."