The Clammer and the Submarine Part 5

Then there was a noise up the path, and Tom Ellis appeared with Cecily.

"h.e.l.lo, people," he said. "Are we the first? I was afraid we would be, but I couldn't hold Cecily any longer."

Cecily smiled. "Don't take any notice of him, Eve, and he'll run down pretty soon."

"And," Tom went on, "Cecily could have painted for another half hour and earned fifty dollars more. You see what a sacrifice I have made for you."

"And your country."

"Country comes first, doesn't it, Adam? Ought to, but I'm afraid the clams had a good deal to do with it. What do you think of my uniform?"

Tom had on the worst looking clothes that I have ever seen on a respectable man who did no work. They were soaked with a mixture of oil and grease and dirt, and spattered with mud, which covered them in great patches here and there, and one sleeve of his coat was torn nearly off. It looked as if a machinist, in his oily jumper, had rolled in wet clay. His rubber boots were those of a mixer of mortar and concrete.

"I am lost in admiration, Tom," I said. "The others will hardly be able to equal that."

"No," Tom returned proudly; and he threw down his rake. He had brought an instrument very like a potato digger, a short-handled rake with huge tines. "The only private, you know. I thought my uniform ought to have distinction. Cleaned up Mr. Goodwin's cars for the purpose." Old Goodwin laughed suddenly at that. "Then I whitewashed the henhouse, with this artistic result. It's quite fun whitewashing henhouses. Ever try it, Adam? Did it with a pump and hose. Whitewash on the windows is an inch thick."

I laughed. "I have had that pleasure in the distant past, and I don't want any more of it. But you have not accounted for the mud."

Tom surveyed the mud and shook his head.

"Can't account for it," he said. "Haven't been near any mud. I can't imagine how it got there, unless Cecily borrowed the clothes. But this party, Adam, is a sort of farewell party for me. I've enlisted. I go to-morrow."

"Go to-morrow!" I cried. "Where? And what have you enlisted for?"

"That is somewhat ambiguous as a question, but I will answer all its meanings. I've enlisted because my country needs me. All the posters say so. That one of the old gentleman in the star-spangled hat looking right at you and pointing right at you, and saying, 'Your country needs YOU,' or words to that effect, was what got me finally. I couldn't get away from it. He was pointing at me and looking at me, wherever I went. And I've enlisted for four years, and--"

"Four years!" gasped Cecily, wide-eyed. "You never told me that, Tom."

"Didn't I? It must have been an oversight, Cecily. You won't mind, will you? And I've enlisted to go to Newport and drive some admiral or other around in a large gray car. Oh, it's not half bad. When the submarines begin to school off Nantucket, perhaps they'll let me go out there once in a while and get a load."

"Tom," said Eve, patting his arm, her eyes shining again, "I think it's splendid. I could kiss you for it."

"Wait, Eve, until Cecily's not around," Tom whispered; "and perhaps Adam could be spared. Then, if you like--"

"I'm going to Newport to-morrow," Cecily broke in decidedly. "I'm going to live there."

"Oh, I say!" said Tom. And Old Goodwin offered to take them both over next day in his new car, and let Tom drive. And he offered further to ferry Cecily back and forth as often as she liked, and to lend them a car if they wished.

So everybody was happy,--excepting perhaps Tom and Cecily,--and the Arcadia was just rounding to her anchorage, and we watched while the shining mahogany launch put off. But, before coming in, the launch went slowly along the whole length of Old Goodwin's ocean steamer. I could see Captain Fergus looking at the work as though he were inspecting it, and once he boomed forth a question, which was answered as if he had a right to ask it, and then the launch made for the landing.

I wondered at it, but I wondered more at Eve. For Eve has pacifist leanings, as I have reason to know and as I have said before; and here she was with all the signs of approval for Tom's action, and ready to kiss him for it. It might be that Eve was entirely willing that the war should be fought vicariously, and that she would sacrifice all her friends in the cause--but not her family. That was not like Eve. I refused to believe it of her. And I turned away and was musing upon this matter when there came down the path Captain Fergus and Mrs. Fergus, and Jimmy Wales and Bobby and Ogilvie; and, some distance behind them, Elizabeth and Olivia. And that was strange, too, that those two girls should be coming by themselves when Bobby and Jack Ogilvie were just ahead; but I could not be bothering myself about all the queer things that people did--or did not do. They did not concern me. There were enough things that did concern me to bother about.

All the company were there. I drew near to Eve.

"If Alice Carbonnel were here now," I said, "and Harrison, we should be complete."

"Alice!" Eve returned. "I wish that I knew!"

Alice Carbonnel was in Belgium, the last we knew, and Harrison Rindge, her husband, was hunting for her. I hope he has found her--safe. We are very fond of Alice Carbonnel, Eve and I.

"There is somebody else to come, Adam," said Eve. "You would never guess. It is my mother."

I smiled, remembering another day when I had met Eve just at that spot to take her to another clambake; a smoking dome upon a point, beneath a pine.

The point and the pine belonged to a queer fellow that I knew--knew well, I thought sometimes, and sometimes not.

And so I smiled, remembering. "Eve," I said, "do governesses have mothers?"

And she smiled too, and she slipped her hand within my arm, and looked up at me with that light in her eyes that makes them pa.s.s all wonders.

"Oh, Adam," she said, "that was a happy day--for me. Oh, but it was hard, and I was afraid."

"A happier day for me," I said, pressing her arm close to my side. "But here comes your mother."

And Mrs. Goodwin came sailing down the path, with our little daughter skipping beside her, and she smiled as she came, which was not what she had been used to do in that time that I remembered. And our company being all a.s.sembled, and the beds being uncovered, although the tide was not yet at its lowest, I gave the order to dig. So we dug, even Mrs. Goodwin digging three clams, and she was not clad as a clammer should be clad, but she had some rubber boots, new ones and thin as gossamer, which a clamsh.e.l.l cut through. And thereafter she sat upon the bank and cheered us on, and gibed at our raiment; as if the body were not more than raiment.

We dug for an hour, and got clams enough for a regiment. All the baskets were filled to overflowing. And we stopped digging, one by one, and straightened our backs slowly, with many creaks and groans, and we drifted to the bank and in and out; and when the drifting process was over, I found myself next to Eve, with Elizabeth on the other side of her, and Ogilvie completing the circle. Bobby stood afar off, looking out over the water as if he were seeing his best friend swallowed by a submarine; and Olivia watched him from a distance.

"I notice, Jack," Elizabeth observed, "that Olivia has a lonesome look."

Ogilvie turned and looked, and turned back again and smiled.

"She has, hasn't she? Bobby too."

Elizabeth never quivered. "Don't you want to relieve her loneliness?"

He shook his head. "I couldn't relieve it. I told you. I'll try later--her last chance."

Elizabeth laughed. I was picking up a bushel basket filled with clams. Clams are a heavy fruit. Ogilvie seized one handle.

"Here!" cried Elizabeth. "I'm going to take that side. I want to help Adam. You go with Eve, Jack. She has something for you to carry."

Ogilvie protested, and so did I, but she was firm.

"I want to go with you, Adam. You needn't think I can't carry my side, for I can."

So we set off, Eve and Jack Ogilvie with a market basket of clams and various hoes, and Elizabeth and I carrying that bushel of clams between us. Elizabeth was strong, I found, and sure-footed; surer than I. The others came straggling after, carrying their loads.

"Elizabeth," I began, "what is the matter with Bobby?"

She smiled and turned to observe Bobby. "I'm sure I don't know. He seems to be well occupied with Olivia." Then she changed suddenly. "That was not honest, Adam," she said. "I do know, but it is nothing that I can help. He will get over it in time--perhaps. I wish he would, for it is not amusing as it is."

And she sighed softly, and then she smiled up at me. It was a brave attempt, and almost a success.

"And Ogilvie?" I asked softly.

She laughed, and spoke low. "Jack has found a little yeogirl. He was telling me about her. She is the loveliest thing that ever was, and the sweetest and the gentlest. She may be all that, of course, but there are some lovely, sweet, and gentle girls of his own kind. But, at any rate, Olivia is nothing to him now. It has done him that much good already."

I was silent, thinking. I wondered how I should like it if Pukkie, being of age and his own master, should elect a yeogirl to the high place in his regard now held by his mother and me; should elect the yeogirl to a higher place. It would be a blow. I could not deny it. But we had been ascending the steep path, and we set our bushel of clams beside the hole lined with stones and the slippery pile of brown rockweed. I sighed as we set the basket down, and so did Elizabeth. Then we both laughed.

"I'm glad that's done," said Elizabeth.

"Amen!" said I.

Then came Tom Ellis and Cecily, and set their basket down; and Tom, without stopping, went to my pile of cordwood, and brought an armful and laid the sticks in order on the stones.

"Come, Adam," he said, soberly. "Remember, it's my last clambake for four years."

"Don't say it, Tom!" cried Cecily sharply. "I'll help you with your wood."

So there was a procession of us going to the woodpile and back, and the sticks were laid in order, three layers, on the stones; then another layer of great stones, each stone as big as a football, on the top of the wood. Then I came with a can of kerosene, and sprinkled the wood liberally. Eve had some matches, and she held one out to Ogilvie.

"Light up, Ogilvie," said Tom. "It's your honor."

And Ogilvie lighted the pile, and Tom made some feeble joke about a funeral pyre, and Cecily almost wept; and the fire blazed up fiercely, and we all drew back. It was hot enough without the fire, and would have been almost unbearable but for the southwest breeze which had started up, and which was sweeping gently, over my bluff. And we watched the fire, as anyone will watch any fire--there is fascination in it--but they began to drift away--to get off their rubber boots and to prepare themselves. No doubt they would have fasted if there had been time. And at last there were left only Old Goodwin and Tom and Ogilvie and I. Eve had gone into the house to fetch the things, and Cecily and Elizabeth with her.

When the fire had burned long and the stones were hot, we raked the ashes off; and shook down upon the stones fresh seaweed from the pile, and on the seaweed laid the clams. Then more seaweed; and the other things, in layers, orderly, with the clean, salt-smelling weed between; then the loose stones, hot stone footb.a.l.l.s, and over all we piled the weed and made a dome that smoked and steamed and filled the air with incense. And the others, having rested from their labors, leaning on their forks or sitting on the ground, went their several ways; for they would garb themselves.

Eve did not place her guests. She considered, a pretty thoughtfulness in her eyes and about her mouth, and cast her place-cards in a little heap on the table, saying that they might place themselves; for she did not know what was going on, and feared to make a bad matter worse.

They did place themselves, after much hesitation and drifting about. Elizabeth sat next to me. She seemed to think me a kind of refuge. And Ogilvie sat at Eve's right,--she saw to that,--and Olivia next because she could not help it, and then Bobby. Where the rest sat did not matter. And Old Goodwin and Tom and I took our forks and opened the smoking dome, and set upon the table chicken and fish and lobsters and brown bread, and great pans of clams steaming in their gaping sh.e.l.ls. Then all would have set themselves to the business of eating; but I had my instructions. I took an old dust-encrusted bottle from Eve's place, and opened it, and went about and poured into the gla.s.ses luminous golden stuff from that old bottle. Then Eve rose, and proposed Ogilvie's health. And we all drank it, but Ogilvie flushed and did not know what to do.

"Oh," he said to Eve, "I never had that done to me before."

And we all laughed, and fell to eating. We opened the clams with our fingers, and took the clam by the head, and gave him a swirl in the saucer of melted b.u.t.ter, and threw our heads back, and took his body into our mouths, and bit him off and cast the head aside, and took the next one. All there had had much experience in the process, and the clams that had seemed enough for a regiment were soon eaten, and there was a prodigious pile of sh.e.l.ls under the table so that one could not move his feet without rattling. And the lobsters were gone, and the chickens, and most of the fish, and much of the brown bread. And first one sat back with a sigh, and smiled, and then another; and at last all were sitting, smiling at nothing and doing nothing else--all but Bobby and Olivia. Bobby, it is true, had a smile graven upon his face, but it was a smile of the face and not of the heart; and Olivia seemed out of sorts and did not take the trouble to smile at all. And the bake was but an empty wreck. Then Eve rose quietly, and they all got themselves slowly upon their feet, and began to drift about the bluff.

My place is not very big, only the clipped lawn in front of the house, and about an acre on the south side ending in the bluff, and a couple of acres to the north, where lies my garden and the rest a hayfield. I should have ploughed up that hayfield and put it into potatoes if I could have found anybody to do the ploughing. But it is just as well as a hayfield. Everybody has been planting potatoes this year. I almost expect to see the gutters sprouting potatoes as I ride along with Old Goodwin in his car. Potatoes will be cheap next winter. And if I had ploughed up that field it would have been even less inviting for our guests to wander over.

Not that any of them showed any disposition to wander over it. The older ones seemed well content to settle down again under my pine, Bobby was mooning alone at the edge of the bluff, Elizabeth was standing talking with Jimmy Wales, and Jack Ogilvie was trying to persuade Olivia to walk to a little clump of trees. I had seen Eve showing him the clump of trees earlier in the day. At last they did walk off toward the trees, Olivia obviously discontented and watching Bobby out of the corner of her eye.

I drifted toward Eve, and she drifted toward me, and we came together, which might be reprehensible but was not strange. We generally do come together. She was clad all in light, filmy white, with two red roses at her bosom, and her hair a glory. And her eyes--there are no other such eyes as hers.

"Eve," I whispered, "do you want to be disgraced? How can you expect anything else when you dress as you did for that other clambake that I remember, and your eyes smiling, and that light upon your hair?"

It was more than her eyes that smiled as she looked at me.

"Yes," she whispered in return. "I want to be. Shan't I show you our clump of trees?" She laughed as she finished.

I hesitated. "But Ogilvie--and Olivia."

"Stupid!" she said. "I did not show him every nook. Come!"

So we wandered about, but we brought up at a secluded nook in our clump, and Eve held up her face to mine. But when I had done it she put her finger on my lips and listened.

"Sh!" she breathed. And I sh-sh-ed, and heard Ogilvie's voice, but I could not distinguish any words. Then came Olivia's voice, shrill and petulant.

"They are not having a good time," Eve whispered.

"He is," I answered; for Ogilvie laughed. It was a merry laugh.

"We don't want to snoop, Adam," said Eve. "Let's--"

"Shall we join the others?" Ogilvie asked, still laughing.

"You may if you like," said Olivia in a voice filled with discontent.

"And leave you here?"

"And leave me here. I'll take care of myself."

"Very well. Good-bye, Olivia. I may not see you again."

"Not see me again? You mean to-day?" Was she regretting?

"I mean for a great many days. Perhaps never."

"Are you going away?"

"I can't tell you. I go where I am sent. Good-bye."

There was a silence. Then, as we stole out, the sound of a single sob. Then sounds of anger. As we emerged from one side Olivia emerged from the other. She made straight for Bobby, where he yet stood on the edge of the bluff, looking silently over the water.

A maid came running out of the house, and went to Jimmy Wales, and called him to the telephone. In two minutes he came hurrying out again.

"Bobby!" he called. "Jack! Come along. It's a hurry call for the Nantucket lightship. We'll go with you, Jack. Just as you are."

He whispered to me as he pa.s.sed. "Submarines reported off the Nantucket lightship," he said. "All the available destroyers and chasers ordered there."

Elizabeth was standing near, and she heard. Jack and Bobby and Jimmy started on a run.

"Good-bye, Jack," Elizabeth called in a clear voice.

He turned and waved.

"Good-bye, Bobby," she called again, but her voice was not so loud.

He turned. "Good-bye," he said. It was like casting at her head a chunk of ice. Ice would not be the most disagreeable thing on that day, but one would prefer it in some other way than thrown at his head. Elizabeth seemed to think so, for she shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly, and I saw tears in her eyes as she turned away.

Captain Fergus hurried after the others, and our other guests melted away. I found myself standing at the edge of the bluff, just where Bobby had been standing, and I gazed out over the waters of the bay--as if I could see the Nantucket lightship! Ogilvie's boat shot out at full speed, and I watched her until she was a gray speck vanishing into the grayness. Gazing out and seeing nothing, and thinking of submarines! It was absurd. They are not, and yet they haunt me. And I looked down at the little strip of marsh at the foot of my bluff, its waving greens turned to orange under the afternoon sun. A blackbird was flying over those green stems waving in the water. The tide was full, and the Great Painter spread his colors on the little waves. It breathed peace, and here was I thinking of submarines. I cannot get rid of them. What if one of these reports turn out to be true? Why, anything might be happening out by the lightship.

And I saw the red shoulders of the blackbird as he flew. He lighted on a reed stem, which swayed down nearly to the surface of the water; and so swaying up and down, he sent out his clear whistle again and again. He is not troubled by the thought of submarines. His heart is not in turmoil over them.