Nobody

"No, it ain't, for I wanted an excuse to see what the place is like.You haven't grown thin yet. What's all the folks about, that they letyou do all the nursing?"

"O, it comes to me naturally, being with Mrs. Wishart. Who should doit?"

"To be sure," said Mrs. Marx; "who should do it? Most folks are good atkeepin' out o' the way when they are wanted. There's one clever chap inthe house – he showed me the way up here; who's he?"

"Fair hair?"

"Yes, and curly. A handsome fellow. And he knows you."

"O, they all know me by this time."

"This one particularly?"

"Well – I knew him in New York."

"I see! What's the matter with this sick woman?"

"I don't know. She is nervous, and feverish, and does not seem to getwell as she ought to do."

"Well, if I was going to get sick, I'd choose some other place than arock out in the middle of the ocean. Seems to me I would. One neverknows what one may be left to do."

"One cannot generally choose where one will be sick," said Lois, smiling.

"Yes, you can," said the other, as sharp as a needle. "If one's in thewrong place, one can keep up till one can get to the right one. Youneedn't tell me. I know it, and I've done it. I've held up when Ihadn't feet to stand upon, nor a head to hold. If you're a mind to, youcan. Nervous, eh? That's the trouble o' folks that haven't enough todo. Mercy! I don't wonder they get nervous. But you've had a little toomuch, Lois, and you show it. Now, you go and lie down. I'll look afterthe nerves."

"How are they all at home?"

"Splendid! Charity goes round like a bee in a bottle, as usual. Ma'swell; and Madge is as handsome as ever. Garden's growin' up to weeds, and I don't see as there's anybody to help it; but that corner peachtree's ripe, and as good as if you had fifteen gardeners."

"It's time I was home!" said Lois, sighing.

"No, it ain't, – not if you're havin' a good time here. Are you havin'a good time?"

"Why, I've been doing nothing but take care of Mrs. Wishart for thisweek past."

"Well, now I'm here. You go off. Do you like this queer place, I wantto know?"

"Aunty, it is just perfectly delightful!"

"Is it? I don't see it. Maybe I will by and by. Now go off, Lois."

Mrs. Marx from this time took upon herself the post of head nurse. Loiswas free to go out as much as she pleased. Yet she made less use ofthis freedom than might have been expected, and still confined herselfunnecessarily to the sick-room.

"Why don't you go?" her aunt remonstrated. "Seems to me you ain't sodreadful fond of the Isles of Shoals after all."

"If one could be alone!" sighed Lois; "but there is always a pack at myheels."

"Alone! Is that what you're after? I thought half the fun was to seethe folks."

"Well, some of them," said Lois. "But as sure as I go out to have agood time with the rocks and the sea, as I like to have it, there comesfirst one and then another and then another, and maybe a fourth; andthe game is up."

"Why? I don't see how they should spoil it."

"O, they do not care for the things I care for; the sea is nothing tothem, and the rocks less than nothing; and instead of being quiet, theytalk nonsense, or what seems nonsense to me; and I'd as lieve be athome."

"What do they go for then?"

"I don't know. I think they do not know what to do with themselves."

"What do they stay here for, then, for pity's sake? If they are tired, why don't they go away?"

"I can't tell. That is what I have asked myself a great many times.

They are all as well as fishes, every one of them."

Mrs. Marx held her peace and let things go their train for a few daysmore. Mrs. Wishart still gave her and Lois a good deal to do, thoughher ailments aroused no anxiety. After those few days, Mrs. Marx spokeagain.

"What keeps you so mum?" she said to Lois. "Why don't you talk, asother folks do?"

"I hardly see them, you know, except at meals."

"Why don't you talk at meal times? that's what I am askin' about. Youcan talk as well as anybody; and you sit as mum as a stick."

"Aunty, they all talk about things I do not understand."

"Then I'd talk of something they don't understand. Two can play atthat game."

"It wouldn't be amusing," said Lois, laughing.

"Do you call their talk amusing? It's the stupidest stuff I ever didhear. I can't make head or tail of it; nor I don't believe they can.Sounds to me as if they were tryin' amazin' hard to be witty, andcouldn't make it out."

"It sounds a good deal like that," Lois assented.

"They go on just as if you wasn't there!"

"And why shouldn't they?"

"Because you are there."

"I am nothing to them," said Lois quietly.

"Nothing to them! You are worth the whole lot."

"They do not think so."

"And politeness is politeness."

"I sometimes think," said Lois, "that politeness is rudeness."

"Well, I wouldn't let myself be put in a corner so, if I was you."

"But I am in a corner, to them. All the world is where they live; and

I live in a little corner down by Shampuashuh."

"Nobody's big enough to live in more than a corner – if you come tothat; and one corner's as good as another. That's nonsense, Lois."

"Maybe, aunty. But there is a certain knowledge of the world, and habitof the world, which makes some people very different from other people; you can't help that."

"I don't want to help it?" said Mrs. Marx. "I wouldn't have you likethem, for all the black sheep in my flock."

CHAPTER XVI

MRS. MARX'S OPINION

A few more days went by; and then Mrs. Wishart began to mend; so muchthat she insisted her friends must not shut themselves up with her. "Dogo down-stairs and see the people!" she said; "or take your kind aunt,Lois, and show her the wonders of Appledore. Is all the world gone yet?"

"Nobody's gone," said Mrs. Marx; "except one thick man and one thinone; and neither of 'em counts."

"Are the Caruthers here?"

"Every man of 'em."

"There is only one man of them; unless you count Mr. Lenox."

"I don't count him. I count that fair-haired chap. All the rest of 'emare stay in' for him."

"Staying for him!" repeated Mrs. Wishart.

"That's what they say. They seem to take it sort o' hard, that Tom's sofond of Appledore."

Mrs. Wishart was silent a minute, and then she smiled.

"He spends his time trollin' for blue fish," Mrs. Marx went on.

"Ah, I dare say. Do go down, Mrs. Marx, and take a walk, and see if hehas caught anything."

Lois would not go along; she told her aunt what to look for, and whichway to take, and said she would sit still with Mrs. Wishart and keepher amused.

At the very edge of the narrow valley in which the house stood, Mrs.Marx came face to face with Tom Caruthers. Tom pulled off his hat withgreat civility, and asked if he could do anything for her.

"Well, you can set me straight, I guess," said the lady. "Lois told mewhich way to go, but I don't seem to be any wiser. Where's the old deadvillage? South, she said; but in such a little place south and northseems all alike. I don' know which is south."

"You are not far out of the way," said Tom. "Let me have the pleasureof showing you. Why did you not bring Miss Lothrop out?"

"Best reason in the world; I couldn't. She would stay and see to Mrs.

Wishart."

"That's the sort of nurse I should like to have take care of me," said

Tom, "if ever I was in trouble."

"Ah, wouldn't you!" returned Mrs. Marx. "That's a kind o' nurses thatain't in the market. Look here, young man – where are we going?"

"All right," said Tom. "Just round over these rocks. The village was atthe south end of the island, as Miss Lois said. I believe she hasstudied up Appledore twice as much as any of the rest of us."

It was a fresh, sunny day in September; everything at Appledore was ina kind of glory, difficult to describe in words, and which no painterever yet put on canvas. There was wind enough to toss the waves inlively style; and when the two companions came out upon the scene ofthe one-time settlement of Appledore, all brilliance of light and airand colour seemed to be sparkling together. Under this glory lay theruins and remains of what had been once homes and dwelling-places ofmen. Grass-grown cellar excavations, moss-grown stones and bits ofwalls; little else; but a number of those lying soft and sunny in theSeptember light. Soft, and sunny, and lonely; no trace of humanhabitation any longer, where once human activity had been in full play.Silence, where the babble of voices had been; emptiness, where youngfeet and old feet had gone in and out; barrenness, where the fruits ofhuman industry had been busily gathered and dispensed. Something in thequiet, sunny scene stilled for a moment the not very sensitive spiritsof the two who had come to visit it; while the sea waves rose and brokein their old fashion, as they had done on those same rocks in old time, and would do for generation after generation yet to come. That wasalways the same. It made the contrast greater with what had passed andwas passing away.

"There was a good many of 'em." – Mrs. Marx' voice broke the pause whichhad come upon the talk.

"Quite a village," her companion assented.

"Why ain't they here now?"

"Dead and gone?" suggested Tom, half laughing.

"Of course! I mean, why ain't the village here, and the people? Thepeople are somewhere – the children and grandchildren of those thatlived here; what's become of 'em?"

"That's true," said Tom; "they are somewhere. I believe they are to befound scattered along the coast of the mainland."

"Got tired o' livin' between sea and sky with no ground to speak of.

Well, I should think they would!"

"Miss Lothrop says, on the contrary, that they never get tired of it, the people who live here; and that nothing but necessity forced theformer inhabitants to abandon Appledore."

"What sort of necessity?"

"Too exposed, in the time of the war."

"Ah! likely. Well, we'll go, Mr. Caruthers; this sort o' thing makes memelancholy, and that' against my principles to be." Yet she stoodstill, looking.

"Miss Lothrop likes this place," Tom remarked.

"Then it don't make her melancholy."

"Does anything?"

"I hope so. She's human."

"But she seems to me always to have the sweetest air of happiness abouther, that ever I saw in a human being."

"Have you got where you can see air?" inquired Mrs. Marx sharply. Tomlaughed.

"I mean, that she finds something everywhere to like and to takepleasure in. Now I confess, this bit of ground, full of graves and oldexcavations, has no particular charms for me; and my sister will notstay here a minute."

"And what does Lois find here to delight her?

"Everything!" said Tom with enthusiasm. "I was with her the first timeshe came to this corner of the island, – and it was a lesson, to see herdelight. The old cellars and the old stones, and the graves; and thenthe short green turf that grows among them, and the flowers andweeds – what I call weeds, who know no better – but Miss Lois tried tomake me see the beauty of the sumach and all the rest of it."

"And she couldn't!" said Mrs. Marx. "Well, I can't. The noise of thesea, and the sight of it, eternally breaking there upon the rocks, would drive me out of my mind, I believe, after a while." And yet Mrs.Marx sat down upon a turfy bank and looked contentedly about her.

"Mrs. Marx," said Tom suddenly, "you are a good friend of Miss Lothrop, aren't you?"

"Try to be a friend to everybody. I've counted sixty-six o' these oldcellars!"

"I believe there are more than that. I think Miss Lothrop said seventy."

"She seems to have told you a good deal."

"I was so fortunate as to be here alone with her. Miss Lothrop is oftenvery silent in company."

"So I observe," said Mrs. Marx dryly.

"I wish you'd be my friend too!" said Tom, now taking a seat by herside. "You said you are a friend of everybody."

"That is, of everybody who needs me," said Mrs. Marx, casting a sidelook at Tom's handsome, winning countenance. "I judge, young man, thatain't your case."

"But it is, indeed!"

"Maybe," said Mrs. Marx incredulously. "Go on, and let's hear."

"You will let me speak to you frankly?"

"Don't like any other sort."

"And you will answer me also frankly?"

"I don't know," said the lady, "but one thing I can say, if I've gotthe answer, I'll give it to you."

"I don't know who should," said Tom flatteringly, "if not you. Ithought I could trust you, when I had seen you a few times."

"Maybe you won't think so after to-day. But go on. What's the business?"

"It is very important business," said Tom slowly; "and itconcerns – Miss Lothrop."

"You have got hold of me now," said Lois's aunt. "I'll go into thebusiness, you may depend upon it. What is the business?"

"Mrs. Marx, I have a great admiration for Miss Lothrop."

"I dare say. So have some other folks."

"I have had it for a long while. I came here because I heard she wascoming. I have lost my heart to her, Mrs. Marx."

"Ah! – What are you going to do about it? or what can I do about it?

Lost hearts can't be picked up under every bush."

"I want you to tell me what I shall do."

"What hinders your making up your own mind?"

"It is made up! – long ago."

"Then act upon it. What hinders you? I don't see what I have got to dowith that."

"Mrs. Marx, do you think she would have me if I asked her? As a friend, won't you tell me?"

"I don't see why I should, – if I knew, – which I don't. I don't see howit would be a friend's part. Why should I tell you, supposin' I could?She's the only person that knows anything about it."

Tom pulled his moustache right and left in a worried manner.

"Have you asked her?"

"Haven't had a ghost of a chance, since I have been here!" cried theyoung man; "and she isn't like other girls; she don't give a fellow abit of help."

Mrs. Marx laughed out.

"I mean," said Tom, "she is so quiet and steady, and she don't talk, and she don't let one see what she thinks. I think she must know I likeher – but I have not the least idea whether she likes me."

"The shortest way would be to ask her."

"Yes, but you see I can't get a chance. Miss Lothrop is alwaysup-stairs in that sick-room; and if she comes down, my sister or mymother or somebody is sure to be running after her."

"Besides you," said Mrs. Marx.

"Yes, besides me."

"Perhaps they don't want to let you have her all to yourself."

"That's the disagreeable truth!" said Tom in a burst of vexed candour.

"Perhaps they are afraid you will do something imprudent if they do nottake care."

"That's what they call it, with their ridiculous ways of looking atthings. Mrs. Marx, I wish people had sense."

"Perhaps they are right. Perhaps they have sense, and it would beimprudent."

"Why? Mrs. Marx, I am sure you have sense. I have plenty to liveupon, and live as I like. There is no difficulty in my case about waysand means."

"What is the difficulty, then?"

"You see, I don't want to go against my mother and sister, unless I hadsome encouragement to think that Miss Lothrop would listen to me; and Ithought – I hoped – you would be able to help me."

"How can I help you?"

"Tell me what I shall do."

"Well, when it comes to marryin'," said Mrs. Marx, "I always say tofolks, If you can live and get along without gettin' married – don't!"

"Don't get married?"

"Just so," said Mrs. Marx. "Don't get married; not if you can livewithout."

"You to speak so!" said Tom. "I never should have thought, Mrs. Marx, you were one of that sort."

"What sort?"

"The sort that talk against marriage."

"I don't! – only against marryin' the wrong one; and unless it'ssomebody that you can't live without, you may be sure it ain't theright one."

"How many people in the world do you suppose are married on thatprinciple?"

"Everybody that has any business to be married at all," responded thelady with great decision.

"Well, honestly, I don't feel as if I could live without Miss Lothrop.

I've been thinking about it for months."

"I wouldn't stay much longer in that state," said Mrs. Marx, "if I wasyou. When people don' know whether they're goin' to live or die, theirexistence ain't much good to 'em."

"Then you think I may ask her?"

"Tell me first, what would happen if you did – that is, supposin' shesaid yes to you, about which I don't know anything, no more'n thepeople that lived in these old cellars. What would happen if you did?and if she did?"

"I would make her happy, Mrs. Marx!"

"Yes," said the lady slowly – "I guess you would; for Lois won't say yesto anybody she can live without; and I've a good opinion of yourdisposition; but what would happen to other people?"

"My mother and sister, you mean?"

"Them, or anybody else that's concerned."

"There is nobody else concerned," said Tom, idly defacing the rocks inhis neighbourhood by tearing the lichen from them. And Mrs. Marxwatched him, and patiently waited.

"There is no sense in it!" he broke out at last. "It is all folly. Mrs.

Marx, what is life good for, but to be happy?"

"Just so," assented Mrs. Marx.

"And haven't I a right to be happy in my own way?"

"If you can."

"So I think! I will ask Miss Lothrop if she will have me, this veryday. I'm determined."

"But I said, if you can. Happiness is somethin' besides sugar andwater. What else'll go in?"

"What do you mean?" asked Tom, looking at her.

"Suppose you're satisfied, and suppose she's satisfied. Willeverybody else be?"

Tom went at the rocks again.

"It's my affair – and hers," he said then.

"And what will your mother and sister say?"

"Julia has chosen for herself."

"I should say, she has chosen very well. Does she like your choice."

"Mrs. Marx," said the poor young man, leaving the lichens, "they botherme to death!"

"Ah? How is that?"

"Always watching, and hanging around, and giving a fellow no chance forhis life, and putting in their word. They call themselves very wise, but I think it is the other thing."

"They don't approve, then?"

"I don't want to marry money!" cried Tom; "and I don't care forfashionable girls. I'm tired of 'em. Lois is worth the whole lot. Suchabsurd stuff! And she is handsomer than any girl that was in town lastwinter."

"They want a fashionable girl," said Mrs. Marx calmly.

"Well, you see," said Tom, "they live for that. If an angel was to comedown from heaven, they would say her dress wasn't cut right, and theywouldn't ask her to dinner!"

"I don't suppose they'd know how to talk to her either, if they did,"said Mrs. Marx. "It would be uncomfortable – for them; I don't supposean angel can be uncomfortable. But Lois ain't an angel. I guess you'dbetter give it up, Mr. Caruthers."

Tom turned towards her a dismayed kind of look, but did not speak.

"You see," Mrs. Marx went on, "things haven't gone very far. Lois isall right; and you'll come back to life again. A fish that swims infresh water couldn't go along very well with one that lives in thesalt. That's how I look at it. Lois is one sort, and you're another. Idon't know but both sorts are good; but they are different, and youcan't make 'em alike."

"I would never want her to be different!" burst out Tom.

"Well, you see, she ain't your sort exactly," Mrs. Marx added, but notas if she were depressed by the consideration. "And then, Lois isreligious."

"You don't think that is a difficulty? Mrs. Marx, I am not a religiousman myself; at least I have never made any profession; but I assure youI have a great respect for religion."

"That is what folks say of something a great way off, and that theydon't want to come nearer."

"My mother and sister are members of the church; and I should like mywife to be, too."

"Why?"

"I told you, I have a great respect for religion; and I believe in itespecially for women."

"I don't see why what's good for them shouldn't be good for you."

"That need be no hindrance," Tom urged.

"Well, I don' know. I guess Lois would think it was. And maybe youwould think it was, too, – come to find out. I guess you'd better letthings be, Mr. Caruthers."

Tom looked very gloomy. "You think she would not have me?" he repeated.

"I think you will get over it," said Mrs. Marx, rising. "And I thinkyou had better find somebody that will suit your mother and sister."

And after that time, it may be said, Mrs. Marx was as careful of Loison the one side as Mrs. and Miss Caruthers were of Tom on the other.Two or three more days passed away.

"How is Mrs. Wishart?" Miss Julia asked one afternoon.

"First-rate," answered Mrs. Marx. "She's sittin' up. She'll be off andaway before you know it."

"Will you stay, Mrs. Marx, to help in the care of her, till she is ableto move?"

"Came for nothin' else."

"Then I do not see, mother, what good we can do by remaining longer.

Could we, Mrs. Marx?"

"Nothin', but lose your chance o' somethin' better, I should say."

"Tom, do you want to do any more fishing? Aren't you ready to go?"

"Whenever you like," said Tom gloomily.

CHAPTER XVII

TOM'S DECISION

The Caruthers family took their departure from Appledore.

"Well, we have had to fight for it, but we have saved Tom," Juliaremarked to Mr. Lenox, standing by the guards and looking back at theIslands as the steamer bore them away.

"Saved! – "

"Yes!" she said decidedly, – "we have saved him."

"It's a responsibility," said the gentleman, shrugging his shoulders."I am not clear that you have not 'saved' Tom from a better thing thanhe'll ever find again."

"Perhaps you'd like her!" said Miss Julia sharply. "How ridiculousall you men are about a pretty face!"

The remaining days of her stay in Appledore Lois roved about to herheart's content. And yet I will not say that her enjoyment of rocks andwaves was just what it had been at her first arrival. The island seemedempty, somehow. Appledore is lovely in September and October; and Loissat on the rocks and watched the play of the waves, and delightedherself in the changing colours of sea, and sky, and clouds, andgathered wild-flowers, and picked up shells; but there was somehow verypresent to her the vision of a fair, kindly, handsome face, and eyesthat sought hers eagerly, and hands that were ready gladly with anylittle service that there was room to render. She was no longertroubled by a group of people dogging her footsteps; and she found nowthat there had been, however inopportune, a little excitement in that.It was very well they were gone, she acknowledged; for Mr. Caruthersmight have come to like her too well, and that would have beeninconvenient; and yet it is so pleasant to be liked! Upon the soberhumdrum of Lois's every day home life, Tom Caruthers was like a bit ofbrilliant embroidery; and we know how involuntarily the eyes seek outsuch a spot of colour, and how they return to it. Yes, life at home wasexceedingly pleasant, but it was a picture in grey; this was a dash ofblue and gold. It had better be grey, Lois said to herself; life is notglitter. And yet, a little bit of glitter on the greys and browns is sodelightful. Well, it was gone. There was small hope now that anythingso brilliant would ever illuminate her quiet course again. Lois sat onthe rocks and looked at the sea, and thought about it. If they, Tom andhis friends, had not come to Appledore at all, her visit would havebeen most delightful; nay, it had been most delightful, whether or no; but – this and her New York experience had given Lois a new standard bywhich to measure life and men. From one point of view, it is true, thenew lost in comparison with the old. Tom and his people were not"religious." They knew nothing of what made her own life so sweet; theyhad not her prospects or joys in looking on towards the far future, norher strength and security in view of the trials and vicissitudes ofearth and time. She had the best of it; as she joyfully confessed toherself, seeing the glorious breaking waves and watching the play oflight on them, and recalling Cowper's words —