Woven with the Ship Part 12

Woman's sphere for her, if she thought of it specifically at all, was a very simple and a very old thing. To love and to be loved, to be first a faithful, happy wife, and second, please G.o.d, a wise, devoted mother, was the sum of her ambition.

There were no young men with whom she came in contact who could measure up to the standard of her social and intellectual requirements, and the chances that any would present themselves had been exceedingly small. So she had represented in her life a hope deferred, but without being heart-sick with the delay; she was of so sane, so healthy, and so happy a disposition that she had been saved all that. With the optimism of youth she had confidently expected that some day the prince would arrive, and when he came, together hand in hand they would go "over the hills and far away, to that new land which is the old." And the portals of that undiscovered country were now opening before her delighted vision.

Barely out of her teens, she had not grown impatient in her dreaming,--life had been too sweet and pleasant for that,--but the thoughtful and somewhat lonely years had made her ready, and it was no wonder that at the touch she yielded. When Revere came to her out of the deep, cast up at her feet by the waves of the sea, as it were, he fitted into antic.i.p.ation already old. He represented the realization of her maidenly desires and her womanly hopes. That she should fall in love with him was entirely natural and quite to be expected, especially since he was blessed with a personality at once strong, lovable, and charming.

The reserve and the calmness of Revere's long line of Boston ancestry had been tempered, modified, brightened, by his sailor life and by his intimate contact with great and heroic men in the war which was just over. Frank, genial, generous, and not without a certain high-bred distinction in his manner, and blessed with a sufficiency of manly good looks, he might well have hoped to win any woman's heart.

The day had been a happy one to Emily, then; happier for her than for Revere, in fact, for that young man's conscience troubled him deeply, while there was no cloud on her sweet pleasure. If he had not been engaged to Josephine he would have revelled in his love for Emily; but he was not free. He was now bound to two women at the same time, and not in strictly honorable relationship to either. The false position was almost unbearable to a man of his fine sensitiveness, and that he had made it himself did not make it less easy to endure. He firmly resolved to extricate himself from his dilemma by informing Josephine at the first opportunity.

No other course was left to him. Since he had seen and known Emily he felt that it would be impossible for him to keep his previous engagement, and yet he realized that it would have been more honorable for him to have controlled himself as he had determined, better to have been less precipitate and to have waited until he had gained his release before he offered himself to Emily.

Carried away by his feelings, he had proposed to her in the boat, and he regretted, not the fact,--never that,--but that he had been so little master of himself, that he could not have delayed his wooing for a few days, until, being made free, he could definitely and properly and honorably ask her for her hand. He felt, for instance, that he could not speak to the old admiral upon the subject until he had secured his release. It would be impossible for him to approach that soul of ancient honor other than free.

Yet when he looked at the girl; when the clear, sweet notes of her fresh young voice thrilled in his ear; when walking by her side her dress brushed against him; when by chance or design he touched her, or her hand met his; when she looked at him out of those frank, honest blue eyes; when he saw the color come and go in her cheek, marked the beating of her heart, caught the unconscious affection with which her eye dwelt upon him at times, when she thought herself un.o.bserved, he vowed that he stood excused in his own heart for his precipitancy.

Every moment when she did not feel and know that he loved her he, in his turn, counted a moment lost. He could hardly wait to get back to the house, where he determined to write to Josephine instantly and apprise her of the situation. He felt, as a matter of course, that she was too proud a woman to hold him to an unwilling engagement for a single moment. Whether she loved him or not he could not say. He thought not, he hoped not. Their engagement had been a matter-of-fact affair, and the courtship had been rather a cool one. He was perfectly certain that she liked him, but that was very different. He had never once seen her breath come quicker when he approached her, the color flush or fade in her cheek as he spoke to her. But he could not be sure. The veneer of birth, custom, and environment had not been worn off of her as it had been stripped from him, and her outward action beneath all this coolness afforded no infallible guide to her feelings.

If she loved him, that would indeed complicate the matter, but there could be--there must be--no other issue than that the engagement should be broken. He would be very sorry for her in that case, but there would be nothing else to be done. He could not help it that he had fallen in love with some one else, and the only honorable thing to do now was to tell the truth at once and break away. A man's reasoning, certainly!

As they approached the wharf where the boat was tied Emily noticed that Revere looked pale and tired. The violent current of his thoughts, the acuteness of the mental struggle in which he found himself involved, together with his low physical condition, had worn him out. Therefore the girl insisted upon rowing back herself.

Even in the dependence of the first love of a young maiden there is a feeling of protection, a foreshadowing of the instinct maternal, which is the foundation of most of the good things in this life, even of the habit and practice of religion. Emily, while she gloried in his virile manhood and dwelt happily upon his strength and vigor, already watched over Revere as she might have looked after a child. And she delighted in the opportunity of doing her lover further service. So Omphale might have considered Hercules.

"I want to show you how beautifully I can pull an oar," she artfully said, in answer to his expostulation, herself only half comprehending the deep springs of action that lay in her being; "and you look so tired. You know you are not yet strong. I ought not to have allowed you to come."

The sense of ownership implied in her last words was delightful to both of them.

"I am tired," he said, honestly, "but not too tired to row you back; and I wouldn't have missed this little voyage for all the cruises of a lifetime. Please get into the boat and take the yoke-lines."

"No," said Emily; "you said I was captain, and I mean to exercise the privileges of my position. Take the yoke-lines yourself. I insist upon it."

"Oh, very well," a.s.sented the young sailor, smiling at her; "I have been under orders, it seems to me, ever since I was born. First mother, then Josephine, and now you."

He sat down in the stern-sheets with affected resignation and gathered up the yoke-lines.

Emily's face had changed somewhat at this last remark, but she said nothing as she cast off the painter, stepped to the thwart, shoved off the boat, broke out the oars, and pulled away. She rowed a pretty stroke, quite as deft as Revere's had been, though lacking somewhat in power. As they cleared the wharf and headed out into the bay toward the Point she looked up at him.

"You have always been under orders, you say?"

"Yes."

"First your mother?"

"Yes."

"And then,--who did you say?" with poorly simulated indifference.

"Josephine,--Miss Josephine Remington," carelessly.

"And who is she?"

"Oh, she's an old friend of the family, a connection in a far-off way.

She has lived with us pretty much since she was a child."

"Are you fond of her?" coldly.

"Yes," with mischievous promptness.

"I suppose so," looking away.

"But not so fond of her as I am of you, Emily," tenderly.

"Is that really true?" eagerly.

"Upon my word and honor," with convincing a.s.surance.

"And you don't love her?"

"Not a bit. I love only one person in the world, and that is you,"

pa.s.sionately.

"Was she the girl you saved?" relieved, but still somewhat anxious.

"She was."

"Does she love you, I wonder?"

"I think not. She never gave me half as much evidence of caring for me as----"

He stopped suddenly.

"As what?" she asked in swift alarm.

"As--forgive me, Emily--as you have this afternoon."

She stopped pulling instantly, her oar-blades lifted from the water in mid-stroke, drops trickling from them.

"Have I been bold and forward?" she cried in dismay. "Oh, what must you think of me?"

"You have been perfect," he answered, fervently; "simply perfect. I wouldn't have you changed an iota in any way. Don't let's talk about other people now. I'd rather talk about you. Tell me something about yourself, about the life you have lived, what you have done, what you have thought, what you have dreamed; tell me everything. I want to know it all."

"Yes, but are you sure you do not love her?"

"I never was so certain of anything in my life, except it be that I love you."

There was conviction in his voice which comforted her soul. Still, she sought enlightenment upon another point.

"Are you sure she doesn't love you?"