Rilla of the Lighthouse

He ended his epistle by telling his sister about the small steamer trunk which had been cast ashore by a storm and then asked if Helen had heard, lately, from Marianne Carnot. A week passed and no reply was received. Gene, growing every day more rugged and ruddy, had actually forgotten that his sister had said if he did not return to New York to spend the holidays with her, that she would visit him.

It was a glorious day, about a week before Christmas, and the air was invigoratingly cold. “I’ll race yo’ around the island on the beach,” Muriel called, as she and Gene started out for their customary morning hike when their tasks were finished.

“You won’t beat,” the boy, whose laughing face was beginning to bronze from the sun and wind, shouted that his voice might be heard above the booming of the surf on the rocks near.

“Won’t I?” Muriel turned merrily to defy him.

“I snum you won’t!” Gene liked to borrow words from the old sea captain’s lingo now and then. “Nor will I, for that matter,” the lad confessed. “Shags will. Now, one, two, three, go!”

Away they ran. Muriel was quickly in the lead, Shags bounding at her heels, and the lad a close third. When they reached the north end of the island they found that the tide was high, which meant that they had to await the receding of the waves before they could round the point on the sand. Luck was with Muriel, for when she reached the rocks there was a clear wet space ahead of her and around she darted, but Gene was held up while another breaker crashed in, and so, as they neared their final goal, the little wharf on the town side of the island, the girl was in the lead.

Her red-brown hair was blown, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling, and as she whirled to exult over the lad, he thought he had never seen a more beautiful picture. He caught both of her hands, but his bantering remark died as he stared at the dock back of Muriel, hardly able to believe his eyes.

“My sister Helen has come,” he said in a low voice, “and someone is with her.” Instantly he recognized the someone. It was Marianne Carnot.

“I’ll go back to the light,” Muriel told him. “Yo’re sister’ll want to see yo’ alone, an’ she won’t care for the like o’ me.”

Gene leaped to her side when the girl turned away. “Muriel Storm,” he said, and there was a note of ringing sincerity in his voice, “you are a princess compared to most girls. Come with me, please, to greet my sister.”

She went reluctantly. She recalled what he had told her about his mother wishing him to care for this French girl of wealth and family and his sister Helen would probably feel the same way. Perhaps they would not be kind to her. How she wanted to run up to the light to the sheltering arms of her grandfather. But Gene held her hand in a firm clasp until they reached the top of the steps leading to the small wharf; then, releasing her, he went to greet the newcomers, turning at once to introduce Muriel. There was indeed a curling of the lips and a slight if almost imperceptible lifting of the eyebrows, but the “storm maiden” in Muriel had awakened, and it was with a proudly held head that she said: “Miss Carnot, I’m that glad to be able to return yo’re box, if ’tis yo’r’n.”

“It is indeed mine,” Marianne replied haughtily. “I will bid the man who rowed us over to get it, if you will tell him where it is. Later you shall receive the reward which my father offered for the return of my trunk.”

Muriel, her cheeks burning, was nevertheless about to comply when Gene leaped forward, saying: “I will show the oarsman where the trunk is, Rilla. You need not come.”

Luckily, at that moment the island girl heard her grandfather’s voice booming her name from the door of the light. Gene heard it, too, and he was glad that it offered his “storm maiden” an escape from further humiliation which he was powerless to prevent.

Later, when the trunk had been placed in the boat, and when Marianne was looking through its contents to be sure that nothing had been removed or ruined, Helen took the opportunity of speaking alone with her brother. She was truly glad to note that his health had been restored and she implored him to return with her for the holidays.

“Surely, brother,” Helen said, “you are strong enough now, and since it was to gain your strength that you came, why should you remain any longer? Gladys and Faith told me not to return without you. They both like to dance with you, and Marianne, I know has been eager to see you. She is hurt, I can tell, because you pay her so little attention today.”

Then glancing toward the lighthouse, where Muriel was standing close to her grand-dad, Helen added in a lower voice: “Of course, I know there is nothing serious in this companionship, Gene, but what would our mother say?”

What, indeed!

“Of course I shall be returning soon,” was all that he would say, “as I want to be back at college by the beginning of the winter term.” Gene spent a long, thoughtful hour alone on the cliff when his sister and the proud Marianne were gone. Muriel was busy preparing the noon meal, but she, too, was thoughtful. Her friend was well enough now to return to the city and ought she not urge him to go? Just before the visitors had been rowed over to Tunkett, Helen had ascended the flight of stairs leading to the light, and, taking the hand of the girl who lived there, she had said, almost pleadingly: “Won’t you please advise my brother to come home for the holidays? I can’t stay with him here and it’s going to be so lonely for me with mother and father away. I would go to them, but the vacation at midwinter will be too short.”

There were tears in the eyes that looked at Muriel with the same frank, candid expression that was also her brother’s.

“I reckon he should be goin’,” Muriel had answered. “I cal’late he’s strong enough now, and he’ll be wantin’ to get back to college arter a spell.”

Helen had smiled her gratitude, and pressing the slim brown hand that she held in her own, that was gloved, she had said hurriedly: “Thank you, Miss Muriel. Please don’t tell brother that I made this request. He might feel that I was interfering.”

Then she had added, “I know our mother would wish it.”

Helen, ever considerate and kind, did not mean what Muriel believed that she did. There was a deep crimson flush in the cheeks of the island girl, but just at that moment Marianne had appeared at the top of the stairs to coldly announce that she was ready to depart.

“I’m coming,” Helen had called. Then, because she was too much like her brother not to ring true, she held out her hand again to Muriel and had said most sincerely: “I want to thank you and your grandfather for having done so much toward restoring Gene’s health. Goodbye.”

“I reckon I’ll be glad when they’re all gone,” Muriel thought, the flush again creeping to her cheeks. “If Grand-dad an’ I aren’t good enough to be associated with I cal’late when Gene comes in, I’ll tell him he must be goin’.”

A moment later she heard his clear, merry whistle as he rounded the house. To his surprise, when he entered the kitchen, she did not turn to greet him with her usual friendly smile.

Had those girls made his “storm maiden” self-conscious? was his first almost wrathful thought. Throwing his cap to a chair near, he leaped to the kitchen table, where the girl stood busily stirring a cornmeal mixture for baking. The lad saw the flushed cheeks and at once he understood. Catching her hands, regardless of the spoon, he whirled her about. “Storm Maiden,” he said, “what did Marianne Carnot say that has hurt you?” He felt, as a brother might, he assured himself, a desire to fight the world to defend this girl. The quivering lips smiled just a little.

“She didn’t say nothin’,” Then Rilla added: “Gene, I’ve been ponderin’ while yo’ve been out, an’ I reckon yo’d better go back to the city now. I cal’late maybe – maybe – ” How she dreaded to hurt him, but she had decided that he must go, but she did not have to finish the sentence.

Gene turned away and took up his cap. “Very well, Muriel,” he said. “I promised to mind every command, and if this is one of them, I’ll go tomorrow.” Captain Ezra secretly rejoiced when he heard that the lad was soon to depart. It was hard for him to share his “gal.” He liked Gene, to be sure, better than he did any boy he had ever known. In fact, he hadn’t supposed “city folk” could be so genuine; willing to clean fish or turn a hand to anything however commonplace. To be sure Doctor Winslow might be called “city folks,” for he had spent most of his time in New York for nearly thirty years, but when all was said, he was really a native of Tunkett.

Muriel tried to laugh and chatter during the meal that followed, but Gene found it hard to do so. He was still feeling rebellious. He was so sure Marianne Carnot had hurt his “storm maiden.”

“She should have remained in Europe if she does not approve of American democracy,” his indignant thought was declaring. “But in Muriel she has met her superior,” another thought championed, adding: “I hope the future will prove it and humiliate her snobbishness.”

After Gene’s departure the delayed blizzard arrived with unusual fury. The mountainous waves crashed against the rocks as though determined to undermine the light, high on the cliff above them; but when each fuming, frothing wave had receded the tower, strong and unshaken, stood in the midst of driving hail and wet snow, but its efforts to shine were of little avail, for its great lamp could merely cast a halo of glow and a small circle of light out into the storm.

Woe to the mariners, if any there were, who went too near the Outer Ledge while the blizzard raged.

“Rilly gal, I cal’late yer city friend got away jest in time,” Captain Ezra said on the third day of the blizzard, which had continued with unabated fury. “It’d be tarnal risky navigatin’ tryin’ to cruise him over to Tunkett today, which was when he cal’lated leavin’, wa’n’t it, fust mate?”

The old sea captain sat by the stove, smoking. It was warm and cheerful in the kitchen, but with each fresh blast of wind the house shook, while the very island itself seemed to tremble now and then as an unusually large wave crashed over it on the seaward side.

Muriel turned to look out of the window toward the town, but all that she could see was the grey, sleeting, wind-driven rain.

Turning back into the warm kitchen, she took her darning basket and sat near the stove. After a thoughtful moment, she spoke: “I reckon things allays happen for the best,” she began, “though it’s hard for us to see it that way jest at fust; but later on, we do. ’Pears thar’s a plan, Grand-dad, and if so, then thar’s Some-un doin’ the plannin’. If we really believe that, then we won’t be worryin’ and frettin’ about how things’ll turn out; we’ll jest be content, knowin’ that somehow they’re comin’ out for the best.”

The keen grey eyes of the old man were intently watching the girl, who, all unconscious of his scrutiny, sat with red-brown head bent over her darning.

“I cal’late yo’re right, fust mate,” he said at last. “It makes the v’yage seem a tarnal lot safer if yo’re sure thar’s a skipper in command that’s not goin’ to let yo’ wreck yer craft on the rocks. Like be you’ll sail in purty rough waters sometimes, but I cal’late thar’s allays a beacon light shinin’ clear and steady through the storm o’ life, waitin’ to guide you to a safe harbor if yo’re watchin’ for it and willin’ to be guided.”

Then the grey eyes of Captain Ezra began to twinkle. “Rilly gal,” he said, “I reckon Parson Thompkins over to Tunkett’d think we was tryin’ to have a meetin’ without him presidin’ at it.”

The girl smiled across at the old man whom she loved. Then, rolling two socks together, she arose to prepare the noon meal.

The captain tilted back his chair. “The sermon now bein’ concluded,” he announced, “it’s time for the singin’.”

In a clear, sweet voice Muriel sang his favorite of the meeting-house hymns. Peace and joy were within that humble home while the tempest raged without. But that night, when she was snug in her bed in her room over the kitchen, Muriel lay awake for a long time listening to the roar of the storm and the crash of the surf and tried to picture what her friend Gene was doing at that hour.

But his world was not her world and the island girl could not even imagine the gayety into which Helen and Gladys and Faith had lured him that New Year’s Eve.

CHAPTER XX.

NEW YEAR’S EVE

The street lights in New York were barely distinguishable because of the storm which raged for many miles north and south along the Atlantic coast.

There were few pedestrians out, although it was still early evening, and but a scattering of closed vehicles. In one of these sat Helen Beavers, Marianne Carnot and Gene. The French girl shivered and drew her costly grey furs closer about her.

“So this is your winter,” she said. “I would like it better in the south where it is always summer.” She shrugged her slim shoulders and tried to peer out of the small, rain-drenched window.

The skidding car was turning into a fashionable side street. Soon they were gliding up the drive of a private residence. They stopped under a wide, sheltering portico and when the door was flung aside Gene leaped to the pavement to help the girls alight.

Brights lights burned within a handsome grey stone house, and a moment later the door was opened to admit them into a festive scene where there was youth and music, laughter and joy.

It was the home of Faith Morley’s Aunt Louise, and this was one of the parties to attend which the girls had begged Gene to return to the big city.

An hour later when he had danced, first with Faith, his hostess, and then with Helen and Gladys Goodsell, he went in search of Marianne, whom he found talking with a tall, lank youth in military uniform. The proud girl paid scant attention to the newcomer. Gene, knowing that it was his duty, if not his pleasure, to ask each of his sister’s friends to dance with him, waited until there was a pause in their conversation before making the request. The French girl thanked him effusively, of course, but declined, saying that she did not dance the old-fashioned American waltz. Then she turned back to the young cadet, who, if the truth were known, was boring her exceedingly. Gene excused himself and, seemingly unnoticed, walked away.

The slow, dreamy waltz music was being played by the palm-hidden orchestra and as it was the only dance for which Gene cared, he sought his sister, but was just in time to see her glide away with his pal, David Davison. He did not care to dance with anyone else. He felt too weary to be entertaining and so he slipped across the hall into the dimly lighted library, where a log was burning on the wide hearth, casting its warm glow over the low bookshelves and the statues and beautiful paintings.

He was glad no one was there. He wanted to be alone, to rest, he assured himself. But what he really wished was to remember.

He sank down into the big, comfortable chair in front of the fire which had recently been deserted by Mr. Morley. An open book and a magazine lay nearby.

How good it seemed to be away from the noise, if laughter and chatter and music could be called by a name so plebian.

Then he listened to the other sounds as he sank deeper into the soft depths of the chair and relaxed, stretching out before the warmth of the blaze.

How the storm whistled and moaned about the house and down the chimney. Closing his eyes, he tried to picture what the storm would be like about Tunkett. He glanced at the small clock over the mantle. Ten-thirty. The house adjoining the tower would be in darkness, but the great lamp would be swinging. Perhaps the blizzard was keeping Muriel awake, and he wondered what she might be thinking about.

Just then he happened to recall what his sister had said to him that morning, and, knowing Helen, he also knew that she had meant it kindly. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she had looked into his eyes, saying: “Dear brother, you wouldn’t allow yourself to care for someone of whom your mother could not be proud. This friend of yours, Muriel Storm, is a fine girl, I am sure, but she could not associate with your friends, and our mother’s heart would be broken if you really cared for her.”

Of course he and Muriel did not care for each other in the way to which Helen had referred. They were just jolly good comrades.’ Why were people always romancing? He was glad that Muriel did not fit into the scene that was being enacted in the brilliantly lighted room across the hall. He liked her best as she was.

At midnight his sister found him and her glance was reproachful at first, but when she saw how truly weary he looked she rebuked herself for having kept him up late so soon after his illness.

She remembered how solicitous Muriel had been that he should not overwork. Was she, Helen, less considerate as a sister than this island girl as a friend?

When they were again in the closed car, Marianne retired into the depth of her furs and ignored their existence, pretending that she was too weary for conversation, but Helen understood.

Marianne, she knew, wished all boys to think her the most charming girl they had ever met, and though Gene was polite, he had not been devoted.

“Poor brother,” Helen thought, as she glanced at his face, pale in spite of its recent tanning. Aloud she said: “Gene, this is the last night that I am going to drag you around to a dance. I know that you ought to just rest, if you are to go back to college next month.”

Gene said nothing, but reached for his sister’s hand and held it in a loving clasp.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHRISTMAS IN FEBRUARY

It was the first week in February before Captain Ezra thought it wise for him to cross the turbulent waters of the bay. It was indeed necessary for him to make the voyage then, as the oil had dropped to what he called “low tide mark,” and after that the faithful keeper of the light never delayed longer than necessary before refilling the tank.

The wind had subsided and the sun came out, revealing the island white with drifts of snow, and, too, there was ice on the stairs leading down to the little wharf. The ever-thoughtful Muriel, upon hearing her grand-dad say that he must go down and get the dory out of the boathouse, skipped ahead with a kettle of boiling water, and, after thawing the ice, swept the steps dry that her grand-dad might not slip.

The old man, coming out of the house just then, his fur cap drawn over his ears and his red knitted muffler tied about his neck, looked lovingly at the girl who always seemed to be planning something for his comfort or happiness.

Why, just then, he should have thought of Muriel’s father whom he had “robbed,” as Barney put it, he could not have told. What that father had lost no one knew better than Captain Ezra. “Ho! Rilly gal, yo’ve swabbed the decks clean, I snum.” Then he added: “Fust mate, I cal’late yo’d better get under cover. It’s cold enough to freeze a volcano, ’pears like.”

As he spoke, his breath frosted on the nipping air. The girl, rosy cheeked, was without hat or coat, and so, kissing her grand-dad on the tip of his nose (little else was visible) and telling him not to slip, and to be sure to bring her a pocketful of letters, she darted indoors.

She felt radiantly happy that glorious morning, and if she had been familiar with the poems of Robert Browning she would have sung, “God’s in His Heaven; all’s right with the world!” But, instead, her wordless song reverberated through the small house until her tasks were finished; then, putting on her leggins, her crimson tam and sweater-coat, and taking a small bag of bread crumbs, she waded through the snow to the cliff to try to find her feathered friends.

She called and waited, soon calling again. Then from out a sheltered cave in a cliff nearby they came, circling about her in the clear, crisp air, uttering their discordant cries, which, however, were music to the ears of the girl, who knew that they were notes of joy and welcome to the friend who fed them through the bitter cold months of winter when fish were scarce and hard to catch.

Muriel did not toss the fragments of bread this time, for she knew if she did so they would sink into the soft depths of snow and be lost; and so she brushed a rock clear and placed the feast upon it. Down the birds swooped, unafraid. It was too cold to remain long out of doors, and moreover Muriel wished to have a nice hot dinner awaiting the coming of her grand-dad.

An appetizing odor of coffee and sizzling bacon greeted the old man when, two hours later, he opened the door and entered the kitchen. The girl, flushed of cheek and eager-eyed, turned to greet him. “Any mail, Grand-dad?” Muriel’s heart was pounding fast when she asked the question.

The old man laughed as he thrust his hand into the deep pocket of his leather coat.

“Mrs. Sol said that if I hadn’t cruised to town today she was of nine minds to hire the lighter to fetch yer mail over. She was feared the floor of her store’d heave in with the weight of it,” he said.

The girl’s excited laughter rang out. “Oh, Grand-dad,” she said, “why does your coat bulge so queer like? I cal’late you’ve fetched somethin’ hid under it.”

She pounced upon him and drew forth the bulgy something, which proved to be a large square package. The wrappings were soon removed and there was the most wonderful book, “Treasure Island,” illustrated in the most beautiful blues and greens and gold. How Muriel loved color.

“Gene sent it,” she said, as she lifted the card with its painted wreath of holly and mistletoe.

But Muriel then had no time to look at the book, as letters were being produced from that great pocket. The girl gasped when she saw them and then she clapped her hands.

“Grand-dad,” she exclaimed, unbelievingly, “are they all for me? I reckon Mis’ Sol did think ’twas a powerful lot o’ mail, bein’ as I never had more’n one and a card before at a time.”

There were four letters from Gene, who had written one each week since he had left Windy Island. He knew his Storm Maiden could not write and so he did not expect answers. What he did not know was that the blizzard had prevented her receiving them as they arrived each week. There was another letter from Ireland and a Christmas card and a parcel from Uncle Lem. There were pretty hair ribbons in the parcel.

“Christmas in February,” Muriel laughed; then added: “The blizzard sort o’ got the calendar mixed, didn’t it, Grand-dad?”

Muriel took her new treasures up to her room and placed them on the top of her chest of drawers. She sighed as she looked at the letters and longed to know the messages they contained. It would take her until spring, she feared, to decipher them, as she would have to study them word by word with the aid of the Second Reader.

CHAPTER XXII.

FACING REALITIES

March came and April followed. Muriel thought that never before had there been so lovely a spring. The returning birds surely sang more wonderful songs than in the springs that were past. The melting snow on the cliffs trickled down, forming sparkling miniature waterfalls. Then, after a warm spell, out of every crevice in the rocks wild flowers blossomed.

The girl, running to the highest peak one glorious morning, flung her arms out toward the sky, letting the wind blow her red-brown hair as it would, and if Gene had seen his Storm Maiden at that moment he would have had a third picture of her that he would never wish to forget.

“Oh, it’s glad I am to be livin’,” she said aloud. “The world is so wonderful and friends are so kind. I’m that happy, so happy.” The birds, her birds, were soon circling about her, for, although there was plenty for them to eat, Muriel fed them just for the joy of it.

“I love every one of yo’,” she told them. “An’ yo’, too, poor ol’ lame pelican,” she called to a larger bird that descended when the flock of white gulls had swooped down to the sea, one of them having sighted a luckless fish that was glinting too near the surface of the water.

Then, scrambling down to her Treasure Cave, the girl brought from its hiding place in a crevice the well-worn Second Reader. Going out on the sun-flooded ledge, she sat for a moment just gazing at the sparkling surf that was crashing far beneath her.

Thrusting her hand into her pocket, she drew forth a letter bearing the New York postmark. It was the last that she had received from Gene, having been left at the lighthouse by little Sol.