Massy Sprague's Daughter
I.
AT the south end of Block Island is a line of grand cliffs from one to two hundred feet high. Some of them are grass-grown to the very beach; but most of them have a rough surface of clay and sand worn into enormous furrows by the rain. They are of irregular shape, some spreading out into wide plateaus on the top, others being merely a sharp point of land running out between two broad ravines.
At sunset, in summer, the mists from the ocean often gather slowly in these ravines, and curl upward like colossal smoke-wreaths from subterranean homes. Gradually they spread over the island, until all road-ways, gates, and fences are obliterated, and men grope their way about by the sense of feeling. A person unacquainted with the labyrinthine paths of the island is as helpless in one of these thick mists as in a blinding snow-storm.
It was on such a night as this that Massy Sprague’s daughter, Toinette, was cautiously groping her way home from the cliffs. Toinette had been lying on the cliffs all the afternoon. There is a great fascination in lying flat, face down, on these cliffs, and looking over the edge, where the earth seems to be only an inch thick under your shoulders. Some-
body said once that these cliffs looked as if they had been broken off from some other side, as a loaf of cake is broken into jagged and unequal parts, with the crust left projecting here and there. Perhaps a giant did it some day, and threw his half of the loaf into the sea. But no such speculations as these had occupied the mind of Toinette this June afternoon, as she had lain with her elbows propped firmly in the knotted grass, and her chin resting on the palms of her hands, looking down on the beach below. White-sailed ships had come and gone in the blue offing, sailing south and sailing north, but Toinette had taken no note of them. Her eyes were riveted on the brown sand one hundred feet below her. Across this beach Ramby Karns drove his father’s cows home every night, and Toinette and Ramby had a system of signals carefully arranged and thoroughly understood, by which they communicated with each other at this point upon the shore. It would seem as if two people living on an island only eight miles long and three wide need never be driven to establishing signal stations in mid-air, to reach each other. But Ramby’s father was a fisherman, and lived in a cabin close to the one wharf on the island, on the western side; and Toinette’s mother lived in a little house on the highest hill to the east, close by an old deserted meeting-house, in which no man’s voice had been lifted to pray or preach for more than a hundred years.
Moreover, Toinette’s mother had forbidden Toinette to speak to Ramby, and this was a more formidable barrier to intercourse than any number of miles would have been. You would not have supposed, to look at old Massy Sprague, that she was an aristocrat. If you had seen the poor old woman hobbling about, with her fierce bull-dog, Janger, at her side, you would have exclaimed, “ What an old negro witch! ” But if you had called Massy a negro to her face, you would have felt Janger’s fangs in your throat in a very few seconds. Massy was an East Indian; and when you looked closely at her skin you saw in it, spite of the weather-beaten wrinkles, a tinge of yellow which indicated no negro blood. Massy was the last of a band of East Indians who had been in the service of the captain of the ill-fated Palatine. When the crew of the Palatine mutinied and killed the captain and all the passengers, they spared these East Indians, eight in number, on the ground of their usefulness as workers. Massy’s mother was said to have been the best cook in all Holland; and her father was equally capable as cook and as barber. The rest were all skilled laborers in one way or another, and were pressed into the service of the riotous mutineers when they landed on Block Island. It is an odd thing on how slender food the instinct of aristocratic exclusiveness can thrive and grow strong, and how long it can survive the loss of the last shred of respectability of position. The wicked mutineers of the good ship Palatine drank and caroused themselves to death in a few years. Block Island became slowly a thriving little community of farmers and fishermen, and there were several families of industrious and wellto-do negroes in the island, but not one of the East Indians would have anything to do with the blacks. They held themselves as distinct from them, and as much higher as if the blood of Saxon kings had flowed in their veins Hence the little handful had rapidly dwindled, until at the time of my story there were left of them only two, — this old woman and her daughter Toinette.
Toinette was a beautiful creature: her skin was of a pure olive tint; she would have been taken in New Orleans for a quadroon, in Madrid for a Spaniard. In New Orleans she would have had admiration and love; in Madrid she might have had even more, for she was rarely beautiful, and had a fine and sensitive nature, which would very easily have received polish and culture. But in Block Island she was ranked by all the whites as a negro, never called anything but “ Massy Sprague’s daughter,” and left as unconscious of her beauty as if she had been in the wilds of Africa. Toinette was a loving, affectionate child, and the isolation in which she and her mother lived was torture to her, — all the greater because of the grim delight which her fierce old mother seemed to take in it. Massy lived in the past; she was too young at the time of the mutiny to remember the details of that horror. She had been the favorite plaything of the riotous mutineers in the short-lived days of their feasting and pleasures; and after that was all past, her childhood had been filled with tales of the riches and splendor of the life of those whom her father and mother had served in Holland. Her contempt for the poor hard-working farmers and fishermen of Block Island knew no bounds. “ Sons of white beggars! ” she sneered. “ I’d not put hand to shoe for one of ’em,— not if I died; ” and though she and Toinette were often half starved, and went clothed in rags, she kept her word. By hook or by crook, she managed to raise potatoes and turnips on her bleak hillside; she had one cow and a few hens; and no rich man on a lordly manor could have had more strongly the feeling of an independent proprietor than did this tattered, shriveled, poverty-stricken old woman.
In a cupboard on her wall were ranged china cups and saucers and mugs that a king might not have disdained to possess: dainty tea-cups not more than two inches high, and so transparent that one could see through them; and mugs of fine china, half a foot deep, covered with gay flags of all nations. These had come over in the Palatine, the property of some of the rich Amsterdam burghers who were seeking a new home in the New World. Massy was as proud of them as if they had descended to her by lawful inheritance instead of having been part of the plunder won by a fearful crime. Very much did some of the Block Island women covet these tea-cups and mugs. Not unfrequently Massy received the offer, for a single cup and saucer, of a sum of money which would have put decent gowns both on her back and Toinette’s for years; but she refused all such offers with a fine, reticent scorn which would not condescend to any volubility, and replied concisely that the cups were “ not for sale.” By such exhibitions of pride, and by her still more scornful repelling of all advances from the colored inhabitants of the island, old Massy had slowly but surely removed herself and her daughter outside the pale of even ordinary good fellowship. If she had been an outcast for crime or for some loathsome discase, she could hardly have been more shunned; and the poor little Toinette shared in the neglect she had done nothing to deserve. At the time when our story opens Toinette had but one friend on the island. This was the Ramby Karns for whom she had been watching from the cliffs. Ramby Karns was as black as the ace ot spades, and his features were those of a Guinea negro; but to Toinette his face was beautiful. He had loved Toinette ever since they had been seated at the same desk in the little unpainted school-house in which the Block Island children all gathered to receive such scanty crumbs of education as Block Island resources could afford. It so happened that for the first term when Ramby and Toinette attended school they were the only colored pupils, and the teacher gave them, therefore, a seat together, although Toinette was only six, and Ramby was twelve years old. He adopted her at once as his especial property, and woe to any boy who dared tease or molest the little thing. For two years this comradeship lasted, and then, to Ramby’s great distress, Toinette was suddenly taken out of school. By a mere accident, old Massy, who never went near the school-house, and had never thought to inquire about Toinette’s companionships there, went down to the village, one day, at noon, to buy a cod-fish. As she was walking home, the thought struck her that it was nooning time for the children, and she would look in on Toinette at her luncheon. Toinette and Ramby were sitting in blissful content at their desk, dining out of Ramby’s pail, poor Toinette’s own dinner being of too meagre a sort to require any such formality of putting up. Suddenly on their quiet broke old Massy’s fierce voice: —
“ What are you doing in the seat with that nigger!” and Toinette felt herself dragged from her seat and shaken violently.
Beginning to sob, she cried, “ Why the teacher put us here. He’s real good to me, Ramby is.” And Ramby stood up wrathfully, exclaiming, —
“ I ain’t any more a nigger than you are yourself, you old blackamoor! But Toinette ain’t a nigger, if she is your little girl,” he added, chivalrously.
Brandishing her cod-fish as if it were a banner, old Massy stalked out of the school-house, leading the sobbing Toinette with her, while the other children looked on half-terrified. On the threshold they met the teacher, who was astonished enough at the sight. Old Massy was as tall as most men, and of a lank and unfeminine figure; her scanty petticoats always clung to her legs, and revealed rather than concealed her angular outline. Still flaunting her cod-fish, with her grizzled locks fling in the wind, the haughty and enraged old woman strode past the wondering teacher, saying, —
“ I ’ll not send my child to any school where she is put in the seat with niggers. ”
The teacher attempted to reply, but old Massy’s strides fast carried her out of reach of his voice, and she did not even look back, or deign to answer him. Poor Toinette cried, —
“ Oh, my slate! Let me go back for my slate.” But her mother’s grasp never relaxed; it was almost more than the child’s legs could do to keep up, and her sobs and cries were piteous to hear.
Ramby stood on the steps doubling up his fists and making vain threatenings in the air. “ I ’ll pay the old woman off yet,” he said, as he reluctantly followed the teacher into the house.
That night he carried Toinette’s slate and all her little belongings home with him: this was on a Thursday. On Saturday afternoon, he climbed the hill to Massy Sprague’s house, and hid himself behind a stone in the old graveyard. Tt seemed an age to him before he caught a sight of Toinette. He dared not go to the house and ask for her. At last the door opened, and Toinette came out. As soon as he saw her he gave a peculiar shrill whistle. Toinette knew it in an instant, and stood still, looking eagerly in all directions. Ramby whistled again: and in a second more, Toinette came running and scrambling over the grave-mounds and fallen stones.
“ Oh, Ramby, Ramby! is that you? ” she cried.
“ Yes; and I 've got all your things,” he replied, producing her precious slate and pencils and the little writing-book, in which several pages of blurred pothooks bore doubtful testimony to Toinette’s skill in the use of a pen.
“ She won’t let me keep ’em, if she knows you brought ’em to me,” said Toinette.
Ramby’s black eyes flashed in his black face. “ Why not? ” he said. “She would n’t be so mean as that! ”
“ She hates black folks,” replied Toinette, “ worst kind. She says we ain’t black; but I don’t see why. I think we're black as anybody.”
“ You ain’t, Toinette,” exclaimed Ramby, admiringly, —“ you ain’t a bit black. You ’re the prettiest color of all the folks on this island. There isn’t anybody got the color you are: it’s the beautifllest yellow; it’s prettier than the middle of the pond lilies. But she,” with a contemptuous gesture of his head over toward the house, — “ she’s as black ’s any of the rest of us. She need n’t talk!”
“ Mam ’s real good to me,” said Toinette, apologetically. “ She’s real sorry I cry so about not going to school. But she ’ll never let me go again, she says, not even if the teacher should come and beg her. She does hate black folks, awful. It ’s queer, ain’t it, Ramby? I think they ’re just as good as white folks.”
“ Better,” said Ramby, “ a great deal better.”
After some discussion the children decided to hide the slate and pencils and writing-book in the old meeting-house. “ And I can come up every Saturday and teach you myself,” said Ramby, with most commendable care for Toinette’s education.
Hand in hand the two roamed about the old ruin, in search of some safe corner. They clambered up into the pulpit, which was a sort of unroofed cupboard, reached by a rickety staircase ten steps high. Ramby stumbled over something as soon as he entered. It was a mahogany ballot-box.
“Good gracious!” said he, “they keep their ballot-boxes up here. This won’t do.”
“ What are they for? ” asked Toinette.
“ Oh, to put the votes in on townmeeting days. They have their townmeeting here every month; didn’t you know it? We’d better keep our things up gallery. They never go up there, I guess. There ain’t half men enough here to fill the pews down-stairs. ”
There were but twenty-seven pews in the body of the meeting-house: they were square, high-walled, of Southern pine, all hewn by hand. In and out of them all the children ran, merrily trying seat after seat. At last they went up-stairs to the gallery, and in the remotest corner from the door, under the last seat, they hid their possessions.
“ This ’ll be your school-house now.” said Ramby.
“ And you ’ll be my teacher,” replied innocent Toinette. Far truer words than Toinette knew! She was now eight, and Ramby was fourteen: from that day he began to teach her to love him. He taught her a good deal else, — that is, during the first two years; for Ramby was an uncommonly bright boy, and his father, who had sailed for many years in a man-of-war before he settled down as a Block Island fisherman, had a great ambition to give his boy what he called “ advantages; ” so he kept him steadily at school long past the time at which most Block Island boys had to begin hard work at home. But just as Ramby had entered on his fifteenth year, his father slipped on the deck of his little fishing-sloop, one icy night, and broke his leg. He nearly lost his life from the clumsiness with which the leg was treated by the non-professional Block Island doctor, but pulled through finally, and lived on, a nearly helpless cripple. No more school for Ramby now: he must run the fishing-sloop, he must work the little farm. Nothing of it all came hard to him, except giving up the Saturday afternoons with Toinette in the old meeting-house. It was not every week, now, that he could treat himself to that pleasure. The fish must be ready to load on the Block Island sloop which ran up every Monday to Newport; and if it were not the fish, it was sure to be something else which needed to be done on the farm. Saturday after Saturday slipped by without Ramby’s finding time to climb up that alluring hill to the eastward. Saturday after Saturday poor Toinette wandered about the old graveyard, and sat idly on the sunken gravemounds, vainly watching for the faithful, shining black face of her boy lover. Nobody knew what the children were about; in fact, nobody was in the least concerned about either Toinette or Ramby, except Toinette’s mother and Ramby’s father! old Massy gave herself no uneasiness about the child so long as she was “playing in the old grave-yard,” and Ramby’s father had never once called Ramby to account for any comings or goings since the day that had reversed their relations, making Ramby the protector and provider.
Toinette was fifteen and Ramby was twenty-one, and they had been for two years betrothed lovers, before an ill wind blew to them the misfortune of old Massy’s discovery of their relations. This concealment on the part of Toinette was not the result of any artfulness in the girl’s nature; it was the simple instinct of her uneducated filial love. She knew her mother’s fierce hatred of black people too well to hope that anything could soften it. Again and again she said to Ramby, —
“ We can’t ever get married so long as mam ’s alive; she ’d kill me first. But I '11 love ye always, Ramby, whether we ever get to be married or not; and there ain't any use in making her mad at me by tellin’ her. Besides, I donno but what it would make her go out of her head, she’d be so mad.” And Ramby, who in his secret heart felt for old Massy a terror which almost amounted to a superstition, acquiesced in all Toinette’s decisions, and plotted as cautiously as she to keep their love a secret. But as I said, an ill-wind blew to them the misfortune of discovery. It was literally a wind which did it, so perverse and trivial an accident that it seemed like the mockery of a malicious fate; one summer Sunday it happened. Toinette and Ramby were sitting in their wonted corner in the old meeting-house gallery, between two open windows. A sudden breeze blew off Ramby’s hat, and wafted it gently out of the south window. Toinette ran down to get it, saying, “I’ll go, Ramby. I’m always afraid mam will see you up here some day. She’s not eyes like a hawk.”
Down the stairs, out of the door, flew the light-footed Toinette, to be confronted by her mother, stern, dark-visaged, on the very threshold, holding the luckless hat in her hand.
“ What man’s hat is this? How came you in here? Who have you got hid away, you shameful hussy? ” cried Massy.
Toinette’s usually gentle spirit was roused, and, standing at bay on the old meeting-house steps, she boldly told her mother the truth. Ramby, hearing voices, came running down-stairs, and old Massy, seeing him, fell into a rage frightful to behold. Tearing her gray hair with one hand, she lifted the other high as she could reach, and cursed him in some East Indian dialect. Then, seizing Toinette, she literally dragged her by main force down the hill, into their house, shut the door with a loud noise, and bolted it.
Ramby was greatly alarmed. The speech, which he did not understand, made his knees shake by its fearful sound. “ Will she kill her? ” he gasped; and his first impulse was to fly to the house and beat down the door. But he reflected on Toinette’s uniform assurances of her mother’s goodness to her, and wisely thinking that his presence would only make bad matters worse he went slowly home.
For weeks after this Toinette was not permitted to stir from the house alone. If she put on her hat, her mother put on her own, and saying, grimly, “If you ’re going out, I ’ll go along too,”walked silent by her side. At last Toinette gave up going out at all. Sad and silent she sat in the house, doing nothing, growing pale and ill each day. Old Massy’s inexorable heart was nearly broken. She tried to make Toinette promise never to marry Ramby. “ I ’ll never promise that, mam, — not if you kill me,” was Toinette’s answer. She tried to make her promise not to see him again. “ I won’t promise ye that neither,” said Toinette. “ I love him, and I don’t care who knows it; and there’s nobody else in all the world that cares for me, or ever did, mam, and you know that.”
“ Oh, child, child! ” moaned old Massy, “ hain’t I cared for ye? ”
“ Yes,” said Toinette, sullenly. “ I suppose ye could n't help it, being my mother; but you ’re going to work to kill me now.”
After this talk, Massy relented so far that she permitted Toinette to go and come alone and untrammeled as before; but whenever the poor child left the house, her mother’s last words to her always were, —
“ If you see Ramby Karns anywhere, you just remember that every word you speak to him is a-disobeyin’ of me. That’s all.” And on Toinette’s return the first question was, “Did you see him? ” the second, “ Did you speak to him? ”
It was partly in evasion of these inquiries that Ramby and Toinette had invented their system of signaling to each other over the cliffs; partly, also, because, as Ramby was sure to be on that part of the beach every night, and the cliffs were not far distant from old Massy’s house, Toinette could see him there on many an evening when there was no chance of their meeting elsewhere. Their system of signaling was pathetic in its simplicity: a green bough waved in circles meant “ All well ; ” lifted up three times in a straight line it meant “ Will you come to-night ? ” waved horizontally it meant “ No; ” dropped over the cliff, or thrown in the water, it meant “ Yes;” and spreading the arms at full length, then bringing the palms of the hands close together, meant “ Goodby.” The slender figure of Toinette, poised on the edge of the precipice, and relieved against the glowing western sky, as she made these graceful and mysterious movements, might have been taken for that of some ancient priestess performing solemn out-door rites; but there was never a human creature to admire or to wonder at the picture; nobody but Toinette ever walked on the cliffs, and nobody but Ramby ever looked up at them from the beach below.
On the evening when we have described Toinette as groping her way througt the mist, she had signaled to Ramby that she would be down that night. Her mother, who had been nearly helpless from rheumatism for several days, had very reluctantly given her money to buy some groceries of which they were in real need. Usually old Massy made all such purchases herself, never sending Toinette to the stores, where she would be in danger of meeting Ramby. But rheumatism and hunger had combined to break down her precautions for once, and she had inwardly groaned to see the light-heartedness with which Toinette set off on the errand.
There is but one public and open road on Block Island. All the rest lead through everybody’s yards, shut up by countless strait and narrow gates; and nobody can get anywhere without passing through these gates, and going up and down innumerable low but steep hills. It is difficult to account for the " lay of the Land” on Block Island; “lay” is hardly the right word to apply to it, however. There is not a level half acre on the island; it must have cooled off very suddenly in midst of a tremendous boil. It is a confusion of bubble-like hills: none of them high; most of them so low that it is a marvel how they contrive to be so steep.
With the roads down from the cliffs to the little settlement around the wharf, where the stores were, Toinette was not at all familiar; and as she groped along, literally feeling her way by the fences, she found herself bewildered and lost. At last, opening a particularly heavy and difficult gate, she found herself in old Hans Ericson’s cow-yard. Hans and his two sons were milking, and they each had a lantern. As the red beams of the lantern fell upon Toinette’s face and figure, in the shifting mists, she looked unreal enough to terrify any man. Old Hans dropped his milk-pail, and exclaimed, “ Mein Gott, vat ish dat! ”
“ Only me, Mr. Ericson,” said Toinette, in a gentle voice. “ I have lost my way. Mother sent me down after some meal ; but I don't believe I can find my way in the fog. I did n’t think I was anywhere near your house. ”
“ How did you kotnmen dis vay? ” said Hans in great perplexity, knowing that Toinette’s home was a long way to the north of his.
“ Oh,” replied Toinette, “ I have been up on the cliffs; I didn’t come straight from home.”
“ So, so,” said Hans, “ dat iss vay. Now you takes mine lantern; you cannot go mitout lantern. It vill pe vorse, an’ not petter. You brings back to-morrow.”
Toinette thanked the old man, and very gratefully took the lantern ; indeed, without it, she might have groped all night long in the fog. She was now so far from the public road that it was better to keep on from yard to yard, in the line of the cottages nearest the shore, than to try to return to the highway. The surf thundered on the beach ; the wind drove great sheets of the mist, like wet avalanches, over Toinette, as, with head bent down, and her lantern held firm in front of her breast, she toiled along. It was a frightful night; no one but a Block Islander could have believed such a night possible in midsummer. Presently she saw flashing lights of lanterns darting here and there, just before her; heard cries of men and the creaking of ropes and masts. She was close upon the quay; in a moment more she was in the centre of a group of men who were watching the coming in of a small boat. One light at its prow rose and sank, and rose and sank, with irregular motions, as the boat was tossed on the rough waves. Toinette pressed eagerly forward.
“ Why, if there ain’t Massy Sprague’s gal! ” said one of the men. “ What’s she doin’ down here at this time o’ night! ”
Toinette shrank back into the gloom, and put her lantern down on the ground. The hubbub increased. The men in the boat called to those on shore; and those on shore answered back, and waved their lanterns high.
“ Can we make it ? ”
“ Ay, ay! ” “ All right! ” “ Bear to the left! ” “ Starboard, man, starboard!” The hoarse cries seemed half stifled in the heavy fog. At last the boat grated against the little stony quay, and, to the unutterable surprise of the Block Islanders, there stepped out two ladies. The skipper of the boat, standing with one foot on the gunwale, shouted, “ Take care of ’em, will ye! I promised to see ’em ashore, but I darsen’t come off. I must get back on the boat. We had the devil’s own time beating down from Newport ; been fourteen hours doin’ it. Must get back somehow before to-morrow morning;” and he pushed his boat off again, and disappeared in the fog.
“ Will some one be so good as to show us the way to the hotel ? ” said one of the women, in a voice which thrilled on Toinette’s ears. “ I believe it is only a short distance from the landing.”
“ I ’ll show you! I have a lantern! ” exclaimed Toinette, springing forward. “ Let me show you,” The men, who had stood silent in the first instant of their astonishment, now crowded up, sheepishly, with their late offers of assistance; but the lady waved them all back, saying, —
“Thanks; this girl will show us the way. We need no other help ; we can carry our bags; they are not heavy;” and she and her companion both turned to Toinette with so resolute an air of dismissal to the others that they all fell back, discomfited and vexed.
“ What in thunder brought that gal down here! ” exclaimed one.
“ She’s as much a witch as her old mother,” replied another. “ That old Massy Sprague’d ha' been hung twice over, I expect, if she ’d ha’ had her rights.”
Incidents were so rare in the monotonous Block Island life that these men actually grudged Toinette the opportunity site had snatched of walking up to the hotel with the strangers. And if it were a thing to be coveted by even these coarse fishermen, what was it to poor, lonely, uneducated, groping Toinette! In the twinkling of an eye, the girl felt herself lifted into a new world by the chance companionship of these two women, who had come from a sphere so different from all which she had hitherto known. With eyes which were hungry in their eagerness, she scanned every point in their attire, which she could see by the shifting light of the lantern beams; with ears strained and alert, as if listening to music, she hearkened to every word they spoke. Much which had hitherto lain dormant in her nature sprang into sudden life, even in these first few instants of the novel relation in which she found herself. “Kitty,” said the elder woman, “this is more than we bargained for, isn’t it? Are you very wet? ”
“ Yes, as wet and slippery as a seal,” replied the girl, laughing; “ but it’s perfectly splendid, I would n’t have missed it for anything. But I’m glad this girl came with us, instead of any of those rough men.”
“ They would n’t have hurt ye, any on ’em,” interposed Toinette, eagerly. “ There ain’t a man on all the island ’d harm a woman.”
Toinette’s voice was singularly low and deep; as she spoke, both the women turned surprised glances towards her; but she was holding the lantern very low, so as to light the path, and nothing could be seen of her face underneath her limp and dripping sunbonnet. At this moment rapid steps were heard following them and cries of “Toinette! Toinette! ”
Toinette stopped. “ That ’s Ramby,” she said, simply.
“ What are you stopping for ? ” said the elder woman sharply. “ Don’t keep us standing here in this rain.”
Before she had finished her sentence, Ramby came plunging headlong up the path; one of the men on the quay had told him that Toinette had gone up to the holel with two strangers, and the faithful Ramby had followed.
“ This is Ramby,” reiterated Toinette, still not offering to move, while Ramby stood awkwardly looking at all three. The red lantern beams flickered fantastically over his black face, which, being wet with the fog, glistened more than usual.
The woman laughed. “ And who is Ramby?” she said, quietly giving him the traveling-bag which he had stretched out his hand to take, saying curtly, “ Take your bags, ma’am.”
“ Ramby is my ” —Toinette stopped short. She did not know any substantive which could properly complete her definition, so she added, stammeringly, “ Ramby.”
The two women pressed each other’s arms, in token of the deliciousness of this revelation of the simplicity of the Block Island natives, and the elder said kindly, “ Very well; your Ramby can carry our bags to the hotel, and the sooner we get there the better. Do you often have weather like this in July?”
“ Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Toinette and Ramby, simultaneously. " It is like this half the time.”
“ Then I should not like to live here,” rejoined Kitty.
“ No, ma’am,” said Ramby gravely, " I don’t reckon you would; ” and they walked on in silence, both Ramby and Toinette full of wonder as to what could have brought these strangers to their island.
As they stepped into the dimly lighted hall of the little inn, Toinette threw back her wet sun-bonnet; at sight of her face, the elder of the two women uttered an exclamation of surprise at her beauty. " Why, Kitty,” she said in a low tone, “the girl is an Andalusian! I had a maid in Seville who was just like her, only not half so handsome.”
“ Hush, Bell!” replied Kitty, " the man is listening.”
No word or look which concerned Toinette ever escaped Ramby. He had heard the first sentence distinctly, all but the word " Andalusian.” He stood quietly at one side while the ladies made their arrangements with the landlord; then, thanking Toinette, they pressed upon her a small sum of money, which Toinette refused, Ramby thought, with unnecessary vehemence. Toinette was in haste to be gone; she dreaded the storm, but she still more dreaded her mother.
“ Come, Ramby, come!” she said, her eyes all the while lingering hungrily on the two strangers’ faces. " Come; mother ’ll scold awful, I’m so late. ” On the threshold Ramby turned back.
“ I ’ve forgot something,” he said. " Wait a bit.” Returning to the room, he said, hurriedly, " Please, ma’am, what did you say Toinette was? ”
The women looked amazed. " Oh,” said Bell, recollecting, " I said she was an Andalusian.”
“ What’s that, ma’am? ” asked Ramby respectfully.
Bell laughed.
“ Nothing bad, Ramby,” she said; " only the name of some people who live in Spain. They are the handsomest people in all Spain. It was a compliment to Toinette, Ramby, that’s all.”
“ Are they all the color Toinette is? ” asked Ramby, earnestly.
“No,—some lighter, some darker,” answered Mrs. Ainsworth, scrutinizing closely the countenance of the negro who asked these significant questions. Ramby turned to go.
“ Thank ye, ma’am,” he said; then, hesitating and taking a step backward, he added, in a tone husky with feeling, “ Any ’s dark ’s me, is there? ”
“ Yes, I think so,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, kindly; and Ramby, with a nod meant to be a bow, disappeared.
“ Bell Ainsworth, how could you tell such a lie! ” exclaimed her friend; “ you never saw in all Spain a Spaniard as black as that man. He’s a genuine negro. ’’
“ But, Kitty,” returned Mrs. Ainsworth, “ don’t you see the whole story? The poor fellow is in love with this beautiful creature, who has n’t a drop of black blood in her veins. He worships the ground she walks on. How could I say anything but Yes? If I never do anything worse than tell that lie, I shall be lucky. Besides, Othello the Moor was as black as Ramby; he ’s always painted so, and half the Andalusians are Moors. I mean to see if I can’t take that girl away with me,” she added. “ It’s a shame for her to be buried here.”
“ What to do with her, Bell? ” asked the practical Kitty, who had before now seen Mrs. Ainsworth’s schemes melt away in thin air,
“ Do with her! Why, she would make an entrancing lady’s maid,” said Mrs. Ainsworth. " Just to see the reflection of her face in the looking-glass, while she was dressing my hair, would be as good as having one of Murillo’s portraits on the wall.”
“ I think she has a faithful nature,” replied Kitty, thoughtfully. “She has what they call the look of the dog-soul in her eyes. I don’t believe she’d leave her Ramby.”
“ Oh, pshaw!” said Mrs. Ainsworth. “You’re a sentimentalist, Kitty, and always will be. Wager me something I won’t carry her back to Newport with us day after to-morrow.”
“ No, I won’t wager you anything,” replied Kitty, “ for if I do you ’ll be sure to take the girl, if you have to kidnap her; and I’m by no means sure you’d do her any kindness to carry her to Newport.”
Mrs. Ainsworth made no reply, but, compressing her rosy lips into a mischievous pout, took her friend by the shoulders, gave her a hearty shake, and then ran out of the room to talk with the landlord.
It was an odd freak which had taken Mrs. Bell Ainsworth and her friend, Kitty Strong, from Newport to Block Island. As they were landing at one of the Newport wharves, one day, after a pleasure sail in the harbor, the Block Island schooner was unloading her cargo of fish and vegetables at the same wharf. Two of the Block Island women were sitting on the deck. The old-fashioned and unworldly look of the women caught Mrs. Ainsworth’s eye.
“ Oh, where did those Rip Van Winkles come from? ” she exclaimed.
“ They ’re Block Islanders,” replied one of the sailors. “ Cur’us critters, them Block Islanders are. They ’re all web-footed. You can't drown one on ’em no more than you can a Newfoundland dog, — not a mite!”
All Mrs. Ainsworth’s gay friends lifted up their voices and warned her not to go to Block Island; said that she might be kept there, nobody knew how long; that one year the election returns from Rhode Island were delayed three weeks, because there had been no communication between Block Island and the main-land during that time, and then when the returns came it was found that the Block Islanders had voted on the last year’s ticket. Moreover, the island was haunted. The phantom of the ship Palatine sailed round and round the island, blazing with phantom fire; only certain persons could see it, and it was a sure presage of ill luck to them. With each remonstrance Mrs. Ainsworth’s desire to visit the island increased, until she declared at last that she would go alone, if nobody would go with her. Finally, she succeeded in organizing a party of six; but at the last moment two of the party refused to go, and two more refused to land when they saw the rough waters, after actually reaching the island. Only Kitty Strong had had courage to persevere; and she had done so more from love for her capricious and willful friend than from any interest in the adventure itself.
The next morning, early, they set out for an exploration of the island. The wooden seats of the wagon were but thinly covered by a worn buffalo robe, and at the first few jolts over the stony and uneven roads Kitty cried out, in dismay, “ Bell, you may shatter your bones in this crazy vehicle if you like; I am going to get out and walk! ”
“ Very well, I ’ll walk, then,” replied Bell. “ It can’t be a very difficult matter to walk all over the island;” and they dismissed the much - discomfited driver, who had had visions of a golden harvest to be reaped from these eccentric fashionable ladies who were bent on seeing the whole of Block Island.
Walking in the sand was harder than they had supposed, and before long they struck off from the road, and began to climb fences and walk in the fields.
“No woods anywhere!” exclaimed Bell. “ How horrid! ” At that moment she caught sight of a gleaming blue lake at the foot of the low hill they had just climbed.
It was a beautiful picture: the grass was green to the water’s edge; in fact, it was green beyond it, for the lake was higher than the usual margin, so that it was surrounded by a low fringe of waving grasses growing in water. Thickly sprinkled among these were great pondlilies. Nowhere in the world are there such pond-lilies as grow in the strange, hill-locked fresh-water lakes of this little ocean-swept island. They often measure from eight to ten inches in diameter when fully open, and the petals are three or four inches long.
“ Gracious, Bell! ” cried Kitty,“ what are those white flowers? They can’t be pond-lilies! ”
“But they are!” said Mrs. Ainsworth. “I’m going to wade in and get some.”
Daintily, tantalizingly, the regal flowers floated and swayed in their safe harbors. Even Bell Ainsworth dared not try to wade out to them.
“I’ll hire a boy to come and pick some for us,” she said at last, discontentedly turning away, and beginning to climb another hill to the right. When they reached the top they looked over into just such another cup-like hollow, with a blue lake at the bottom, set in a rim of bright green grass, starred with white lilies. A slender figure was slowly coming up the side of the hill towards them. Mrs. Ainsworth put up her eyeglasses to look at her, and exclaimed, “ What luck! That’s Toinette, I do believe.”
“ And she has a basket of lilies! ” cried Kitty. “ We ’ll buy them of her. How charming! Bell, you always do trail adventures after you wherever you go.”
When Toinette first saw the ladies standing still and gazing at her, she stopped, flushed all over, and then walked rapidly towards them.
“ Good morning, Toinette,” said Mrs. Ainsworth. “ We were just saying we must hire a boy to come and get some of these beautiful lilies for us. But we would much rather buy them of you. Will you sell them to us? ” Toinette colored again, a deeper red. Her large dark eyes filled with tears.
“ I got ’em on purpose for you, ladies,” she said, looking bashfully down at her muddy bare feet and legs. “ I was going to carry ’em to the hotel to-morrow. I thought you’d like ’em. I shan’t sell ’em, though.”
“ No, indeed, child,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, lightly; “you shall give them to us, and welcome. Come home with us, and show us a new way to go.”
Toinette shook her head. “ Mam won’t let me go to-day. I was down yesterday,” she said.
“ Do you live near here, Toinette? ” asked Mrs. Ainsworth, with a sudden resolution in her tone.
Toinette pointed to a thin curl of smoke creeping over a hill a few rods off. “ That’s our chimney,” she said.
“ We ’ll walk home with you, and ask your mother,” said Mrs. Ainsworth.
Toinette’s face glowed, but she said nothing as she led the way.
Old Massy Sprague was not an inviting sight, as she stood in her door-way that noon. She grew darker and darker, and more and more grim every month. Her hopeless sorrow and helpless anger over Toinette’s love for Ramby were really killing her by inches. Janger, the bull-dog, snarled and sprang viciously out to the full length of his chain, as he saw strangers approaching. Even Toinette’s presence did not reconcile him to their appearance. Old Massy took her pipe out of her mouth, and, staring at the strangers, said, “ Still, Janger! ”
“Mam! mam!” exclaimed Toinette, “ here are the ladies I telled ye about, that come last night.”
“ How d’ ye do,” said Massy, with a faint dawn of a smile on her face. “ Will ye come in and be seated? ”
“ Thank you,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, “ that is just what we should like,” and she followed the old woman in. No sooner had her eye fallen upon the china in the cupboard on the wall than she bounded across the room, exclaiming, “ Why, where in the world did you get that lovely china? ” and her eyes sparkled with the delight of a connoisseur.
Massy smiled, grimly. “ Ye knows chany when ye sees it, ma’am,” she said. It gave the old woman pleasure to see her treasures appreciated. “ There ’s nobody here knows the difference between them cups and them mugs, only the mugs is the brightest color.”
“ The mugs are very pretty,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, “ but the cups! Why, I’ve never but once or twice in my life seen such cups.”
“ I dessay not,” replied Massy. “ The king of Holland has drunk out of them cups.”
“Do tell me how you got them!” asked Mrs. Ainsworth.
“ They was brought over in the same ship my mother came over in,” replied Massy, evasively.
“Oh, the Palatine!” cried Kitty. “ Did your mother really come over in that ship? And have you ever seen the phantom of it which they say sails around the island ? ”
“ Lor’, yes, lots o’ times,” said Massy; “ but I hain’t seen it now for goin’ on twenty year. They say it’s a cruisin’ now off the south shore,”
“Ramby’s seen it,” interposed Toinette, eagerly.
Old Massy’s face darkened, and she cast a stern look at Toinette, who colored and looked distressed.
Unconscious Mrs. Ainsworth followed with the unlucky remark, “We saw Ramby last night ” —
She was going on to say more, when Toinette gasped, “ Oh, don't, ma'am!” and ran out of the room.
“ What is the matter with the child? ” asked Mrs. Ainsworth, in bewilderment.
Old Massy drew herself up to her full height, and, in spite of her squalor and rags, there was almost a tragic dignity in her figure, as she replied, “ The matter is, ma’am, that she’s an ungrateful, disobedient gal. She ’s a-goin’ with that nigger now these three years, an’ she knows it’s draggin’ me down into my grave to see it. But I hain’t got no power to prevent it, an’ ’s soon’s I’m under-ground she ’ll marry him. I’d rather bury her any day, an’ she’s all I’ve got in the world.”
“Why, is he a bad man?” asked Kitty, innocently.
“He’s a nigger!” thundered old Massy, in a voice one would not have supposed could have come from a woman’s lips. “ He’s a nigger, an’ that’s enough.” Mrs. Ainsworth and her friend looked puzzled. Massy continued in a sneering tone: “ Perhaps you take me an’ my daughter for niggers. Folks generally does, an’ I let ’em if they want to. But we ’re East Indians, an’ my mother and father, an’ their mother an' father before ’em, tended on them who went to courts all thir lives. My mother “s cooked dinners for the king, and held the king’s children on her knees; and if Toinette had any pride she’d live an’ die to herself, as I’ve done. But she hain’t any; she ’ll marry that nigger’s soon’s I’m under-ground;” and tears, too hot to fall, stood in the old woman’s eyes,
“ Why don’t you send her away? ” asked Mrs. Ainsworth; “ she would soon forget him.” Kitty looked reproachfully at her friend.
“ Send her away!” said Massy. “ I look like it, don’t I! How ’d I send her away, I wonder, I hain’t got ships and folks to go to; we ’re all that’s left of my people, — we two.”
“ I ’ll take her with me, if you ’ll let me,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, eagerly.
Old Massy rose again, walked rapidly across the floor, and, standing so near that her rags brushed against Mrs. Ainsworth’s dainty garments, scrutinized her in silence for a moment. Then, “ Be ye rich?” she said, fiercely.
“ Yes,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, half cowering under the old woman’s gaze; “ I am very rich, and I will make Toinette comfortable, and take good care of her. ”
“ To be your child? ” asked Massy.
Mrs. Ainsworth flushed. “ Oh, no,” she said, “ I had no idea of that. I thought ” — She hesitated, half afraid to suggest the idea of service to this East Indian princess in rags. “ I thought you might like to have her earn some money.”
“ Oh, to wait on ye, ye mean,” said Massy, in an altered voice.
“ Yes,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, more resolutely, now that Massy herself had phrased her meaning. “ I said to my friend here last night that I would like to take Toinette home with me as my own maid. She would soon learn all that is needed. I would give her good wages.”
“ I don’t care nothin’ about the money,” interrupted Massy. “ I’ve got all I need here. We kin live off the place. But I ’d like to have the child got off this island, ma’am. I donno but you was sent here for that; I’ve been a-prayin’ an' a-prayin’ that some way ’d open. I ‘11 give ye my answer to-morrow, ma’am, if that ’ll suit ye. Ye look real kind and good. Ye’d be good to the child, would n’t ye, now ? ” she added, bending her head on one side, and studying Mrs. Ainsworth’s face with an earnestness of gaze which was pathetic.
“Indeed, I will be good to her; you need not fear,” replied Mrs. Ainsworth.
“ Perhaps Toinette will not want to go,” interposed Kitty “ She won’t like to leave you here all alone.”
“ She’ll go, fast enough,” said Massy, doggedly. “ She’s been out of her head, about, tellin’ me all ye wore an’ said, an’ how ye looked. Ye see the child’s never saw a lady in her life till she see you; and she knowed the difference as soon’s she set eyes on ye. An' that’s what I’ve always been a-tellin’ her, but she would n’t believe me; she couldn't, I suppose; nobody can’t without seein’ for themselves. I ’ve always told her that she did n’t know anything, cooped up here on this island; she 'd see that that nigger was n’t no mate for her, if she ever got a chance to see anybody else.”
“ He seems to love her very much,” said Kitty, sadly, “ and he looks good and honest.”
Old Massy flamed. “ I think it’s likely he does love her; she ’s a gal might hold up her head anywhere in God’s world for looks; and ye know it, ladies, ’s well’s I do. That’s what’s killin’ me, to see her goin’ with a nigger. He’s honest enough, so far’s I know. But he’s got no right to set, so much ’s his eyes on a gal o’ mine,” and Massy clinched both her fists in impotent rage.
When old Massy told Toinette of Mrs. Ainsworth’s proposition, the girl’s face turned white. Her eyes gleamed, and she opened her lips twice without uttering a sound. Then she gasped, “ Did she mean it, mam? Did she really mean it, do you think? ”
“ Then ye 'd like to go ? ” said Massy, slowly, eying her daughter’s face keenly.
“Oh, mam, yes!” cried Toinette. “ Could ye spare me? Ye could n’t get on alone, could ye, main? I reckon I had n’t ought to go.”
This was a moment of something nearer happiness than old Massy had known for many months. The thought of Ramby had evidently not crossed Toinette’s mind. Massy had supposed it would be the first thing she would think of. But even Massy did not know how powerfully Toinette had been wrought upon by the presence of these women, — these beings from another world.
“Yes, child, I’d get on without ye; at any rate, for a spell. I 'd like ye to see something o’the world; an’ I’ve always told ye, ye had n’t no chance here. I’d like ye to go; but I ’ll go an’ ask about these folks. ’T ain’t right to send ye off with strangers nobody don’t know nothin’ about. I think they ’re nice folks, though. She’s a real lady, anyhow.”
“ Yes, mam, that she is,” said Toinette, enthusiastically. “ They ’re both beautiful, but the young lady has n’t got such a nice voice. The other one’s voice is jest like the singin’ at meetin'.”
Mrs. Ainsworth would have considered this comparison but a dubious compliment, had she been familiar with the sounds produced by the Block Island choir. They meant music to Toinette, however, and when she first heard Mrs. Ainsworth speak, the resemblance had occurred to her,
Toinette felt like one walking in a dream. She went over into the old grave-yard, and sat down on one of the fallen grave-stones to think. It was a sunny day: the sky was clear and blue, and little breezy clouds were hurrying about in different directions on crosscurrents. Toinette looked up at them; for the first time in her life, she wondered where they were going. All things took on new significance to her, since her own life seemed to have a future; all nature seemed to be made up of vistas, now that one had opened before her. Ramby was in her thoughts, also, and she felt a genuine and tender regret at leaving him; but the idea of staying behind on his account did not occur to her. She pictured herself as coming back to see him, and bringing him reports of all that had happened to her in the new and wonderful world upon which she would enter when she sailed away from the island. She pictured herself as buying little gifts for him and sending them down by the captain of the schooner. She thought possibly Ramby might come up to Newport, some day, to gee her, and what a pleasure it would be to show him everything. Poor Toinette! she was sixteen years old by the calendar of the days of her life, but her heart was the heart of a little child.
Early in the afternoon old Massy put on her antique bonnet and the remains of a scarlet cashmere shawl which had belonged to the wife of an Amsterdam merchant more than a hundred years before. Looking at herself cynically in the bit of broken looking-glass set up on the top of the cupboard, she said to Toinette, “ Specd I scare folks, don’t I, child? I do look bad, there ’s no denyin’ it.”
“No, indeed, mam,” said the affectionate girl; “you always look good if your clothes be ragged,” and she kissed her.
“ I shan’t be home before night,” said Massy. “ I can’t walk’s I used to. What ’ll ye do, child? ”
“ I ‘11 go down on the cliffs, I reckon,” said Toinette, guiltily.
Ramby had told her the night before that he would go for the cows very early, so as to have time to climb up into a ravine where they often met for a few moments’ talk; Toinette lowering herself carefully from shrub to shrub, and Ramby climbing up in the same way on the slope of one of the lowest of the cliffs.
“ I don’t see what ye ’re so fond o’ the cliffs for,” said Massy, as she left the house. “Ye’ll be seein’ the blazin’ ship one o’these days, if ye ain’t careful; always lookin’ off to sea, as you be.”
“ I’d like to see it, mam,” said Toinette. “ Everybody’s seen it but me.”
“ Better not. It don’t bring no good to nobody,” said Massy, gravely.
Toinette had been lying on the cliffs for an hour before Ramby appeared below. The time had seemed short to her, so absorbed had she been in the anticipations of her new life. As soon as she saw Ramby she sprang to her feet, and made such haste down the ravine that she met him only a little way from the bottom.
“ Why, Toinette,” he exclaimed, “ ye come down like a wild cat! What ’s a-hurryin ’ ye so ? ”
“ Oh, Ramby, such news! ” cried the girl, and she poured out her tale.
Ramby’s first words, strangely enough, were the same old Massy had used : “ Then ye’d like to go, would ye ? ” and he eyed Toinette’s face as keenly as her mother had done. The face and the words told but one tale. Ramby made no opposition to the plan. The love in the heart of this untaught black man was as unselfish as could have been found under the fairest of Saxon skins. “ I expect it’s a great chance for you,” he said, slowly. “ I suppose there ’s no knowin’ when you ’ll come back.”
“ Oh, I shan’t stay long,” said Toinette, vaguely, but confidently. “ I shall come back to see you and mam. I’m to have wages; so I shall have money enough to come as often’s I want to.”
“ I don’t expect ye ’ll want to come very often,” said Ramby, quietly.
Something in his tone dampened Toinette’s gladness. “Why, Ramby,” she said, “ye ain’t sorry, are ye? Ye wouldn’t have me miss it, now, would ye, Ramby? I wish she wanted us both to go.”
“I couldn’t leave father, anyhow,” said Ramby. “ If it wa’n’t for that, I ’d go right up along with ye, and get work to do there, too. I expect there ’s plenty to do to earn a good livin’ in Newport. But I ’ll make out to run up an’ see ye, Toinette, that’s certain.”
Ramby missed something in Toinette’s kiss when they parted that night; he could not have told what. Many a lover has vainly puzzled himself over the same sort of undefinable hurt. The difference between being a human heart’s sole interest and being even its chief interest is the difference between love’s absolute happiness and love’s contented resignation. One does not complain of the latter; it would be unreasonable; but when one has once known the fullness of the first, all else and less must seem poor in comparison.
Old Massy’s inquiries in regard to Mrs. Ainsworth were more than satisfactory. The captain of the schooner which ran regularly to Newport was an inquisitive fellow, who amused himself, in the intervals of time which he had on his hands there, by roaming over the town and picking up information about everybody. He knew Mrs. Ainsworth by sight, and gave old Massy an amount of detailed information about her house, horses, way of living, and so forth which it would have astonished that lady to hear circulating on Block Island. After leaving Skipper Ericson, Massy went to the hotel, and had a long interview with Mrs. Ainsworth. All was satisfactorily arranged. Mrs. Ainsworth was to set off for Newport at noon the next day, if the wind were favorable, and Massy promised to be on the wharf with Toinette at that time.
A strong south wind blew fair and free all night, and did not die away at dawn; and at eleven o’clock Skipper Ericson was ready to set sail for Newport. Mrs. Ainsworth and her friend were on board about as soon as he, and he was impatient to get off.
“ But you said at noon,” urged Mrs. Ainsworth; “ and I told the girl who is going up with us to be here at twelve. We must wait for her ; we must go ashore if you will not wait for her. I shall not leave her.”
“Massy Sprague’s gal?” said the skipper.
“ Yes,” said Mrs. Ainsworth. “ Do you know her? ”
“ No,” said the skipper ; “ there don’t nobody know her. Her mother’s an old witch. She come off the Palatine.; leastways, her folks did. There was a kind o’ colony on ’em that always kept to themselves, and would n’t have nothin’ to do with the colored folks here. These two is all that’s left. The gal’s putty for a yellow gal. That fellow there, he’s goin’ to marry her, they say,” and the skipper pointed to Ramby, who was cutting up and cleaning fish in front of his cabin, a few rods off from the wharf. Ramby’s feet and legs were bare; his trousers rolled up high above his knees, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his shoulders: every muscle of his well-knitted body stood out in relief in the sun; his head was large and well set on his neck, and as he moved swiftly about his work Mrs. Ainsworth whispered to Kitty,—
“ If he were white, would n’t he be a splendid fellow ? ”
“ I think he is as it is,” said Kitty, stoutly. “He ’s a noble fellow, and I think you ’re doing a cruel thing, taking this child away from him.”
“ Why, he can’t marry her,” said Mrs. Ainsworth.
“ No, but she’s safe here, and close to him, and they are comparatively happy; that old woman can’t live long, and then they could be married. And you don’t know what ’ll happen to the girl in Newport.”
“ Pshaw, Kitty ! ” said Mrs. Ainsworth. “ There you are at your sentimentalizing again. The girl will have a chance to earn money and improve herself, and no harm can come to her in my house, that’s certain. ”
“ Not so certain, ” thought Kitty Strong to herself, but she said nothing.
At this moment, Toinette was seen running breathlessly down the beach, carrying a small bundle in her hand.
“ Why what’s the matter with the child? She’s crying hard! ” exclaimed Mrs. Ainsworth, “ And where ’s the mother? She was to come to see her off.”
“ May be she’s changed her mind,” said the skipper. “ She ’s the devil’s own dame, old Massy is; and the gal’s as afraid of her as death, I 've heard say. ’’
Ramby looked up at the sound of Toinette’s steps, threw down his knife, and bounded towards her.
“ Oh, Toinette, be ye goin’ ? ” he said.
“ Yes; mam made me! ” sobbed Toinette. “ I did n’t want to. Mam’s real sick in bed; she can’t hardly stir, but she just drove me out. I darsen’t stay; but I 'm afraid she ’ll die, an’ there ain’t nobody to go near her, if I ’m gone.”
The two were walking slowly towards the boat, Toinette crying audibly. Mrs. Ainsworth sprang on shore, and met them.
“My poor child, what is the matter ? ” she said.
“ Mam made me come,” said Toinette, crying still harder. “ She’s sick.
I ’d go back if I darst, but I darsen't.”
Mrs. Ainsworth looked at Ramby. His face was full of sorrow and perplexity.
“ Is there no one who will go to the old woman? ” said Mrs. Ainsworth.
Ramby shook his head. “ There ’s plenty’ud go,” he said, “but they’re all afraid of her.”
Skipper Ericson was growing very impatient; the south wind is a treacherous promisor, as all sailors know.
“ If this wind dies down,” he said to Kitty Strong, “ we ’ll not make Newport to-night, that’s all.”
“ Oh, Bell, do hurry! ” called Kitty. “Let the girl stay; she can come up next week.”
“Oh, I darsen’t stay; I ’ll have to go with ye!” cried poor Toinette. “Mam said she would n’t let me into the house if I came back! I expect she ’ll die.”
Mrs. Ainsworth took out her purse, and gave Ramby a sum of money larger than he had ever before held in his hand at once.
“There!” she said, “take that, Ramby. You can surely hire somebody to go up to the house and stay. Wait,” she added, hastily writing a few lines upon the back of an envelope. “ There is my address. You write— You can write, can’t you?” Ramby nodded.
“You write and tell us how Mrs. Sprague is. Come, Toinette,” and Mrs. Ainsworth took the girl by the hand. Toinette broke from her hold, threw her little bundle of clothes on the ground, and flinging her arms round Ramby’s neck kissed him over and over, crying,— “ Oh, Ramby, I don’t want to leave ye, — 'bleed I don’t.”
Ramby’s face was convulsed, but he did not shed a tear, and only said, as he kissed her, “ Don’t take on so, Toinette. You 'll be glad when ye get there. It’s lots better for ye to go. Don’t take on, now,” and he gently but firmly led her to the boat.
“ Thank ye, ma’am, thank ye,” he said to Mrs. Ainsworth. “ I ’ll send ye an account of the money. I know a woman who ’ll go for money.”
“Who is it, Ramby? Who is it?” called Toinette from the deck. But Ramby’s answer was lost in the noise of the creaking sails and rattling chains. Skipper Ericson was making all possible haste to get under way. The boat rocked. Toinette sank helplessly down on a stack of fish, buried her face in her hands, and cried bitterly; and Mrs. Ainsworth looked at Kitty in dismay, and said in a whisper, —
“ How disagreeable! What in the world shall I do with the girl if she’s going to act like this!”
“Don’t be afeard, ma’am,” said the skipper who had overheard the whisper, “don’t be afeard; she’ll come to directly. ’T ain’t no great misfortin to be tookaway from Block Island, an’ that gal knows it’s well ’s anybody. She ’ll come to.”
II.
Great was astonishment in Mrs. Ainsworth’s I household when that lady appeared, at eleven o’clock that night, accompanied by what her elegant Irish coachman politely characterized as a “ half - naked, half - drowned nigger.” This was rather too severe a description of Toinette’s appearance, yet it must be owned it was not wholly undeserved. The girl’s thin calico gown was drenched with salt-water and clung like a bathingdress to her figure. Her little old calico sun-bonnet was also wet, and flapped about her face limp and shapeless. Her eyes were swollen with crying, and her lips pouted like an unhappy child’s. She was thoroughly frightened, too, at the newness of all her surroundings, and also at an indefinable change in Mrs. Ainsworth’s manner towards her. All the beauty, all the grace, of the child’s face and bearing seemed suddenly to have disappeared, and Mrs. Ainsworth’s disappointment and perplexity gave to her tone in speaking to her a certain coldness which the kindness of her words could not quite do away with. Toinette would have given her right hand to be back again on her lonely island. She glanced about her furtively, like a hunted wild animal, The brilliant lights of the splendidly appointed house dazzled her eyes. The soft carpets made her afraid to step. The superciliousness in the looks of the finely clothed servants seemed to her like hatred; and when, in reply to a scarcely respectful inquiry from one of them to her mistress as to “ where this person was to sleep,” pointing to Toinette, Mrs. Ainsworth had replied petulantly, “ Goodness! don’t bother me about that! There are rooms enough in this house. Give her something to eat, and put her to bed somewhere; ” and then, turning to Toinette, had said indifferently, “ Now, eat your supper, child, and go to bed; and for Heaven’s sake don’t get up in the morning with such a face as that ! ” poor Toinette’s cup of misery was full. She could not swallow a morsel of the food set before her, and when she lay down on her bed, though it was softer than she had ever dreamed a bed could be, she tossed and turned and cried for hours.
But in the mornig all was changed. Mrs. Ainsworth was a kind-hearted woman underneath all the sensuousness and love of pleasure which her luxurious life had fostered, and her first thought on waking was, “ Dear me! I’m afraid I was cross to that poor little thing last night; I was so cold and tired and seasick. Marie, Marie!” she called to her maid. “ Is that poor little Block Islander up yet ?’’
“The colored girl, ma’am ? ” asked Marie, with no very pleasant tone.
“ She isn’t a colored girl, any more than you are yourself,” answered Mrs. Ainsworth emphatically, “ She’s an East Indian; and I ’m going to keep her, and have her taught to take care of herself; she’s lived like a heathen. Now you be good to her, Marie. I ’ll give you my black grenadine if you ’ll give her that little blue gingham of yours. It will just about fit her. I ’m sure I can’t have her going about in that rag she wore yesterday. I ’ll get her some clothes to-day, and have her made decent.”
Marie was all smiles and complaisance immediately, and when she entered Toinette’s room she had voluntarily added a neat white petticoat and apron to the gift of the blue gingham; also a bit of ruffle for Toinette’s neck, and a little knot of black ribbon.
“ Here,” she said not unkindly, “ Mrs. Ainsworth wants you to put on these clothes. They ’re all mine, but we ’re about of a size; they ’ll do for you till she gets you some others. ’’
Toinette was sitting on the floor, her arms crossed on the window-sill, gazing out to sea. She had been sitting there ever since daybreak, revolving in her mind wild impulses of escape and return to Block Island. At the sight of the pretty blue gown and the dainty white apron her eyes lighted up.
“ Be them for me? ” she said, “ for my own?”
The reverential admiration in the child’s face pleased Marie’s vanity.
“ Lor’, yes,” she said; “ you may have ’em and welcome. I’ve got more clothes than I know what to do with. Mrs. Ainsworth gives me all her gowns.”
“ Ain’t she beautiful! ” said Toinette, in an enthusiastic tone.
All the darkness had rolled away from her skies; with the instantaneous transition of an infant, she had passed from sorrow and apprehension to joy and delight. Again the alluring vista of the new life stood open before her, and bounding to her feet she began slowly to undress herself.
“ I ’m real ’shamed to undress afore ye,” she said, with a shy respectfulness of tone which won on Marie still farther. “ I hain’t never had nothing; mam and me was awful poor. I reckon ye hain’t ever been on Block Island have ye? ”
“ No, thank the Lord! ” said Marie, undevoutly. “ Mrs. Ainsworth never takes me when she goes to these outlandish places. My! but you’ve got pretty hair, child! ”
Toinette’s hair, which had been loosely coiled and held by an old broken comb, had tumbled down as she put her head through the narrow opening of the blue gingham gown.
“ Let me do it up for you,” said Marie. “Mrs. Ainsworth likes to see everybody look pretty about her.”
“ I expect that’s the reason she likes you,” said little Toinette, honestly; and these words completed the winning over of Marie. With as much care as she would have dressed her mistress’s hair, she arranged Toinette’s, brushing it all back securely above her ears, and knotting it low behind, leaving a few careless short curls on the forehead. Then she fastened the little knot of black ribbon in the right place at her throat, and, tying on the white apron, led her to Mrs. Ainsworth’s bedside; and smiled as beamingly as Toinette herself when Mrs. Ainsworth, looking up from her newspaper, exclaimed, —
“ Why, Marie, you’ve made her look like another creature! Now, Toinette,” she continued, “you are to do just what Marie tells you. She ’ll teach you to sew, and let you help her on ray clothes; and nobody else in this house is to have anything to do with you;” and Mrs. Ainsworth returned to her reading, entirely satisfied that she had done the best possible thing for Toinette.
Once installed as Marie’s protégée and pupil, Toinette’s comfort was assured; for Marie was almost as great a power in the Ainsworth establishment as even Mrs. Ainsworth herself. And Toinette soon came to divide her allegiance almost equally between the mistress and the maid. The Frenchwoman was thoroughly kind and good-humored, and her vivacious stories of life in France, and of her experiences, which had been by no means unvaried, in America, were endlessly fascinating to Toinette. Marie was an excellent dress-maker and milliner, and had the true French talent in such work; but Toinette had something better than talent or French training, — she had the artist’s eye and hand. One day, when Marie was trimming a hat for her mistress, and the placing of the feather gave her trouble, Toinette, who was sitting on a low cricket at her feet, said timidly, —
“Marie, wouldn’t it look pretty up there? ” indicating the spot with her finger. “ I think Mrs. Ainsworth always looks prettiest when the things are noddin’ on her head as if they growed there.” It was the unconscious touch of the artist. Marie pinned the feather where the little Block Islander had suggested, and all Newport said how ravishing was Mrs. Ainsworth’s French hat.
It was early in June when Mrs. Ainsworth took Toinette from her home. In three months, Toinette’s own mother would hardly have known her. Under the combined influence of good food and ease of life the child had grown tall; her figure had developed, and was now even more beautiful than her face. A certain daintiness, which came very near being elegance, always characterized her personal atmosphere, though she wore only the plainest of ginghams and chintzes, and was never seen without a white apron. Maine found her an invaluable assistant. Mrs. Ainsworth often laughed, and said, —
“ Marie, how did you get on before we had Toinette? You ’ll never let her go; ” and Mrs. Ainsworth was well content that it should be so. Gradually many of Alarie’s duties slipped into Toinette’s hands. Some things which Marie had always disliked to do were to Toinette simply a delight: the accompanying her mistress to the beach, for instance. Many a lounger on the beach, at the bathing hour, wondered admiringly at the beautiful girl in the dress of a servant who sat motionless in the door of one of the bathing-houses, her eyes fixed on the ocean with a look of yearning love. When Mrs. Ainsworth stepped out of the water, Toinette bounded to meet her, and, throwing a white wrap over her shoulders, walked by her side as absorbed as a lover. If Mrs. Ainsworth had been a woman of deep feeling, she would have seen in Toinette the signs of a devotion and passion which were dangerous elements in her nature; but Mrs. Ainsworth had never in her life analyzed a character, or thought deeply about life. She was kindly and sensuous, at ease with the world and with herself ; and always thought of Toinette, as she spoke of her, as “a dear, affectionate little thing, and such a beauty it’s a pleasure to have her in the house.”
While days were gliding thus swiftly, smoothly, and transformingly for Toinette in Newport, on Block Island, only a few hours away, they were dragging sadly and monotonously for Toinette’s mother and lover. Old Massy had recovered from the illness which she had at the time of Toinette’s departure; and Ramby had inclosed to Mrs. Ainsworth, in a pathetically labored and ill-spelled letter the unspent balance of the money she had given him to pay the nurse who took care of her. Massy’s one interest in life now was her weekly walk to the post-office, to get her letter from Toinette. When the mails were delayed, she went daily until the letter came. That Ramby went as regularly and patiently as herself, and heard as often from Toinette, old Massy suspected, but asked no questions and gave no sign. Like a true Indian, she buried out of sight the rankling hurt from which she could not free herself. Toinette’s letters, at first childish and short, grew each month longer and more mature. Under Marie’s affectionate training she was being rapidly taught in more ways than one, and it was increasingly a pleasure to her to write full accounts to her mother of all that happened. Her letters to Ramby were less full; but Ramby did not know this, and found them as satisfying as anything short of the sight of Toinette could be. At last his hunger to look on her face once more grew uncontrollable, and having arranged with some one to take care of his father in his absence he went on board the schooner, one morning, and set out for Newport. Poor Ramby was but a sorry figure to walk the Newport streets. What was barely respectable on Block Island was grotesque shabbiness in Newport. As he slowly found his way, from street to street, towards the fashionable part of the town, by asking directions at every corner, people turned and gazed in astonishment at him. He looked like a field-hand escaped from some Southern plantation. When at last he reached Mrs. Ainsworth’s place, he stood still, in mute wonder. He had never dreamed of anything like this. To his inexperience it looked like a palace.
“ I kin never go in there ’n ask after her,” thought Ramby. “ I expect they ’d drive me away from the door ; ” and the poor fellow walked up and down, growing more and more unhappy every moment. The house stood on one of the most beautiful of Newport’s beautiful cliffs; its towers and balconies glistened in the sun. The greensward of the lawn looked to Ramby like velvet; he peered closely through the slender iron palings at it, wondering if it could really be grass. The great clumps of trees, the white statues, the marble vases filled with gay flowers, all looked to Ramby even more unreal and bewildering than they had to Toinette, when she first saw them. He leaned against a tree on the opposite side of the road, and watched the house.
“ I might ketch her, perhaps,” he thought, “ if she was to come out for anything.”
In a few moments, he saw the door open; a party of ladies and gentlemen came out, and stood under the portecochère. looking off at the water; some of the ladies wore riding-habits. Presently there came dashing up to the door showy carriages and several saddle-horses; Mrs. Ainsworth and her friends were setting out for their afternoon pleasure. Ramby recognized her, and also Miss Strong; but who, oh who, was that slender figure following behind? Her arms were loaded with wraps, which she gave to the grooms and to the gentlemen; then, turning, she ran back into the house, and brought out more. She wore a tiny white cap with a fluted ruffle, a dark blue gown, and a white apron. She was taller than Toinette had been, and how much prettier! but it was, yes, it was Toinette herself. With eyes made farseeing by sudden jealous pain. Ramby saw every glance, every smile, every gesture. He saw the gay people in the carriages lean forward and throw some small, bright-colored things at Toinettc’s head; saw her laugh, and hold up her apron, into which there fell a rain of the pretty colored balls. They were bonbons which the gay people had brought out from lunch, agreeing with one another to pelt the pretty waiting-maid with them. Toinette was a plaything for them all; a pretty picture she made, as, courtesying again and again, she laughed and showed her white teeth, then turned and ran into the house, — a very pretty picture, but it stabbed the faithful Ramby to the heart.
“Toinette!” he cried, as she disappeared; but the sound of his voice hardly crossed the road. It was not so much a call as a sob. The carriages and the riders dashed by him, and covered him from head to foot with choking dust. He turned his back to the road, and stood motionless till they had passed; then, without one more look at the house which hid Toinette from his gaze, he turned and walked back to the wharf. He went on board the schooner, and sat down in the same corner where three months before Toinette had sat sobbing when she left him. Suddenly he remembered that the skipper might come back, and would wonder to see him there. He did not wish to answer any questions; so he rose slowly, and, walking with uncertain steps, like a man feeble from illness or age, went a long way out on the narrow strip of land leading to Fort Adams. It was a Reception Day at the fort; the flag floated high on the staff, and the band was playing gay music. All these things Ramby noted with that strange sense, at once dulled and keen, of which men are aware when they find themselves benumbed by pain.
When he returned to the schooner all was ready for her departure, and the skipper stood on the deck, looking out for Ramby.
“ So, there you are,” he said. “ Did ye see Toinette? ” There had been no secret as to the purpose of Ramby’s voyage to Newport. Ramby nodded. “ Is she all right?” asked the skipper.
“ Yes,” said Ramby.
“ Reckon she’s got a first-rate berth up there.”
Ramby nodded again, and, curling himself up on a coil of rope at the cabindoor, lighted his pipe and began to smoke.
Skipper Ericson eyed him without appearing to do so. “ Reckon the gal ’s gone back on him,” he thought. “ Donno ’s it’s strange, either; ” and the kindhearted fellow asked no more questions.
When, a few weeks later, Ramby received a letter from Toinette saying that she was to go with Mrs. Ainsworth for the winter; that Mrs. Ainsworth had promised to let her come down to Block Island and bid her mother good-by, but at the last moment was too hurried to spare her, Ramby was not newly grieved nor surprised. He had made up his mind now that he should never see Toinette again; and she was not really any farther from him in New York than in Newport. Old Massy took the news more sorely to heart; and the sum of money which Toinette sent her (it was every cent of her wages for the four months) was no consolation to her. She threw the letter down fiercely.
“Fine words are easy come by to fine ladies! ” she exclaimed. Mrs. Ainsworth herself had written a note to say how sorry she was not to have been able to let Toinette come home for a few days, but she had been obliged to return to New York sooner than she expected; and so forth and so on, — the polite phrases politeness can so easily spin, and keen insight so easily unravel. “ I don’t want their money; I want a sight o’ my gal’s face. What if any harm should come to her off there!” But presently Massy grew calmer, and wrought herself into a species of content by dwelling on the thoughts of Toinette’s good fortune and the speedy return of “ next summer.” She smiled grimly to herself as she read Toinette’s entreaties that she would buy for herself warm clothing with the money sent. “ I ain’t a-goin’ to spend the gal’s money,” she said. “I’ll keep it for her agin the time she wants it more. It’s jest as well she should send it to me to lay up for her.” And the old woman stinted herself as much as ever, in every way, and kept Toinette’s money hid away in an old bead bag in the wall cupboard with the china, always taking it out and putting it in her bosom when she left the house or went to bed.
Massy was not destined to see the next summer, for which the polite Mrs. Ainsworth had made so many kind promises. It was a bitterly cold winter; for two weeks at a time there was no communication between Block Island and the main-land, and gales of wind and sleet swept over the island perpetually. Now and then somebody said, “ I wonder how old Massy gets on!” but nobody went to see; nobody but Ramby cared much whether she were alive or dead. At last, Ramby, having learned that she had not been seen at the stores for nearly a month, and that two letters were lying at the post-office for her, nerved himself up to go to her house.
“ I suppose she ’ll set Janger on me,” he said; “ but I can hold up the letters to her, and then she ’ll call him off. ”
This Ramby said to himself, seeking to divert his mind from the strange presentiment he felt that old Massy was dead. He was benumbed with cold, and his face was cut with the driving sleet, before he reached the top of the hill on which the house stood. No smoke came from the chimney. No Janger was in sight. Ramby stood still. A superstitious terror withheld him from going farther. At last, the thought of Toinette gave, him heart to proceed. He knocked timidly at the door, — no answer! He knocked again; still no answer. He lifted the latch; it was fastened. He went to the bedroom window and peered in; through a narrow crevice between the curtain and the wall, he saw dimly that the bed was in confusion and empty. He went to the back door, and shook it violently. The old hinges suddenly gave way; the door fell into the room, and Ramby fell with it. Scrambling to his feet, half blinded by the fall and by his fear, he saw lying on the hearth, almost in the ashes, the dead body of old Massy. With trembling hands he lifted one of the arms. It was frozen stiff. As it dropped with a heavy sound to the floor, the bead bag fell out of the opened folds of her nightgown. Ramby picked it up, opened it, saw the money.
“ I expect I ’d better keep this for Toinette,” he said; and he put it in his pocket with Toinette’s two letters. “ Poor little gal,” he thought, “ how ’ll I ever write and tell her! I don’t suppose it ’ll make any difference now about the old woman’s being dead; she would n’t have me now;” and Ramby looked down at the dead body of the only enemy he had ever had in the world, and wondered vaguely why it had all happened.
Nobody wondered very much or cared when Ramby brought the news that he had found old Massy dead in her nightclothes on her kitchen hearth; and it was with some difficulty that any one could be hired to go up to the house and prepare the body for burial. The minister and Ramby, the old sexton and the women who had attended to the last offices for Massy, were the only ones who were present at her funeral; and Ramby and the sexton alone carried her over into the old grave-yard, and buried her in the very corner where Ramby and Toinette had oftenest played when they were children. It was tacitly recognized that Ramby had more right than any one else to take possession of the house and the few things Massy had left. It was supposed by the few who took any interest in the matter that Ramby and Toinette would some day be married; and Ramby did not confide to any one that his hope of this had gone. So the little Block Island community dismissed all thought of old Massy and her affairs from its mind. Ramby mended the kitchen door, made the rooms as clean as he could, packed the dainty china cups and mugs in a box with the few rags which old Massy had called clothes, nailed boards across the windows, locked the doors, and then went home to sit down and send the news to Toinette. With a delicacy of instinct which he could not have had except for his great love, he wrote to Mrs. Ainsworth instead of to Toinette herself. The letter chanced to be handed, with others, to Mrs. Ainsworth when she was surrounded by a party of her gayest friends, and on reading it she exclaimed, “ Oh, the poor little thing!” and then read the letter aloud.
Kitty Strong was in the party; as she listened to Ramby’s few words, intense from their very simplicity and affection, she cried, “ Oh, Bell, Bell! What did you ever take that child away from that island for ? Nothing will ever happen to her so good as the love of that faithful black man.”
“Black man!” exclaimed several of the group. “You don’t mean to say that it’s a black man! What a shame for Toinette to have anything to do with a negro! ”
“ There! ” exclaimed Mrs. Ainsworth, triumphantly, “ that’s what I told Kitty! Anybody would say so. I think it’s a lucky escape for the girl; and now that the old mother’s dead there’s no reason why she should ever go back to the island at all. I don’t believe she cares much about him, now.”
“ Toinette’s not a white woman, herself,” replied Kitty Strong. “ No white man would be likely to marry her; and if she had remained on Block Island, and married Ramby, she would never have had any idea of disgrace connected with her black husband. They had loved each other ever since they were babies. It is a thousand pities, and you may live to see it yet, yourself, Bell.”
“ Oh, now, Miss Strong, really, you know, you ought to consider,” drawled Lawrence Mason, the shallowest and most affected of all the young idlers in Mrs. Ainsworth’s set. “ A nigger, you know, is a nigger, say what you will; and really this Toinette, you know, she’s something quite out of the common. By Jove, no man need object to making love to her. She ’s an exquisite creature.”
“Fie, fie, Lawrence! I ’m ashamed of you,” laughed Mrs. Ainsworth.
Kitty Strong colored, said nothing, but bent a glance of burning indignation first on the heartless fop, and then on her friend, and left the room. It was an inexplicable thing, the attachment between Kitty Strong and Bell Ainsworth: the one so upright, so clear-sighted; the other so unthinking and facile.
Mrs. Ainsworth deputed Marie to break the news to Toinette. She dreaded the sight of the child’s grief. Mrs. Ainsworth avoided all unpleasant things, on principle as well as from instinct. It was hard to make poor Toinette believe that her mother was dead. She read Ramby’s little letter over and over and over, till it was ragged in the folds from much handling and wetting with tears.
“Mam, oh, mam!” was her only cry. “ Why did n’t I go home and see her! Oh, mam, mam!” She begged piteously to be allowed to go, even now. “ I’d like to see where they ’ve buried her,” she said.
“ Bell, let the girl go,” pleaded Kitty Strong. “Let her go. It isn’t too late now. Let her go.”
But Mrs. Ainsworth was far too selfwilled and obtuse to do any such thing. She comforted Toinette by promises that she should go early in June, as soon as they returned to Newport ; it was now February. She showed her accounts in the newspapers of the terrible weather, the fierce gales, the shutting in of Block Island. “ You could n’t even get there at this season, if you were to try, child,” she said. “ You’d be drowned.’’ And timid, clinging Toinette shuddered with fear, even while she sobbed out her desire to go.
In Ramby’s letter to Toinette herself, he had made no allusion to her mother’s death, except to say, “ I suppose what’s happened won’t make any difference now about our being married. I ’m stayin’ on here, just the same as I always was, and ye know where to find me; but I want ye to do jest what’ll make ye happiest, Toinette. I ain’t good enough fur ye, an’ I was n’t never; but. I ’ll love ye’s long ’s I live, and I won’t love nobody else.”
Toinette cried a good many tears over this letter, too, and showed it to Marie, who, wise Frenchwoman that she was, knew better than to make any direct attack on Ramby.
“He seems to think everything of you,” she said. “It’s a pity he’s black. Is he really very black? Is he as black as Miss Griffin’s coachman? ”
“ Most,” said Toinette, shamedly; and then, a little conscience-stricken, added, “ Yes, quite.” And this one sly question of Marie’s went more against poor Ramby than whole days of argument could have done.
Long before June, Toinette had ceased to talk about going to Block Island,— had ceased to weep at the thought of her mother, and was fast learning to think with great coolness of Ramby. The slow poison of the atmosphere in which she lived had changed the whole currents of her being. She was a good girl still, but she was like her mistress, ease-loving, pleasure-loving, sensuous, and vain. Her letters to Ramby grew gradually shorter, colder, and farther apart; each gradation was noted and felt by the faithful fellow, and at last he wrote to her, one day, —
“ Ye know ye need n’t write any more, if ye don’t want to, Toinette. It seems to trouble ye some to do it. Ye ’ll always know I’m here. I’m takin’ care o’ the old house for ye, if ye should ever come to want it. It could be made real comfortable, if ye should ever change your mind an’ come home again.”
After this letter Toinette wrote oftener and less coldly for a few weeks. The letter smote on her heart, and reawakened all the old memories of her childhood. But the spell of the new life was stronger, and soon she ceased altogether to write to Ramby.
“ It’s kinder not to,” the artful Marie had said one day, just at the right moment and in just the right tone. “ It’s kinder not to, because you might be only just keeping him all the time from thinking about somebody else; and you won't ever leave such a home ’s you’ve got here to go and live on that heathen island again.”
“ I don’t think there is anybody else he’d care about,” said Toinette, slowly; “ but I expect it’s better not to write.”
It was about three months after this conversation with Marie, and only a few days after the Ainsworth villa had been opened in Newport, that Toinette electrified Mrs. Ainsworth by informing her that she wished to leave her employ. Mrs. Ainsworth’s astonishment knew no bounds when Toinette went on to say that she proposed to set up for herself as milliner in Newport.
“ Set up for yourself, child? You ’re crazy ? You can’t take care of yourself! ” she cried. “ Has that Marie been putting this nonsense into your head? ”
But Marie was as much astonished as Mrs. Ainsworth; more indignant, too, for she had learned to love Toinette as if she were her child. She rated her soundly. “More fool you,” she said; “you’d better have gone back to Block Island and married your nigger. You ’re no more fit to take care of yourself than a baby. Not but what you ’re a born milliner, — there’s no doubt about that; but you ’d be sure to be cheated every time you bought a bit of ribbon.”
However, when they found Toinette was immovable in her resolutions, both Mrs. Ainsworth and Marie good-naturedly did all in their power to help her. They were astonished to find how distinct and matured all her plans were. She had already selected the little house in which she would live: it was an oldfashioned cottage on one of the oldest streets in Newport, — a street where the pavements are of unevenly worn round stones, the sidewalks are so narrow two cannot well walk abreast, and queer jutting gables and overhanging upper stories make vistas almost like those one sees in Nuremberg. There was a bit of sloping greensward in front of the cottage, and a little sunken pebbly path leading through it. A great bower of lilac bushes crowded up to the two south windows, and an old gnarled apple-tree with a robin’s nest in it stood at the farther end of the little inclosure. The old house had never been painted, and was now of a delicious leaden-gray color. When Toinette moved in, the apple-trees were in blossom and the lilacs were leafing out, and the little spot had a beauty of its own which even Mrs. Ainsworth, coming from her luxurious and beautiful villa, did not fail to perceive.
“ Child, what a nest you have found for yourself! ” she said. “ How did you come to know of it? ”
“ I saw it one day when I was walking, and I said then I should like to live in it,” she replied.
“What is the rent?” asked Mrs. Ainsworth.
Toinette colored. “ It has always rented for three hundred dollars.”
“ But goodness, Toinette,” cried Mrs. Ainsworth, “ you can’t pay such a rent as that off your work! ”
“I have enough to pay it for one year,” answered Toinette evasively. “I think I can earn more than that. All the ladies say they will give me their work. ’’
It became the fashion to drive to Toinette’s little shop, smell the lilacs, look at her geraniums and apple-tree, and buy her daintily made articles. For the first few weeks money poured in on Toinette. When Newport idlers have caprices they are sure to be violent ones, and this was no exception; Toinette was the fashion. These were charmed days in her life. How well many of her customers remembered afterward the beautiful glow on the child’s cheek, the merry light in her eye. She was certainly a most exquisite creature. If there was in her manner just one touch of vain consciousness of her beauty, you forgave it as you would in a little child young enough to be fondled and spoiled by having been always called pretty. Marie was very happy in Toinette’s success. Marie was growing old now, and she liked nothing better than to sit in Toinette’s shop of an afternoon and gossip with the customers, as they lingered at the counter lost in perplexity between pinks and blues. Very seriously Marie revolved in her mind a scheme for offering herself to Toinette as a partner. With her skill at dress-making added to Toinette’s in millinery, there could be no doubt that the firm would have good success, and might come in time to have that thing so dear to every true French heart, an establishment with employees and a regular line of trade. But Marie was much given to ease; she clung to the comforts of her home in Mrs. Ainsworth’s house.
“Bah!” she said to herself, “why should I begin to slave at my age? It is all very well for the child, who is young, and will marry and bring up her children in the house; but for me it is folly. I stay with madame.”
And so the summer sped on: the lilacs faded, fell; thick-packed clusters of glistening brown seeds shone on their stems; rosy apples dotted the old apple-tree boughs; the geraniums were wilted by frost; only a few wine-colored and white chrysanthemums remained in the borders of the little pebbly path leading to Toinette’s door. In Toinette’s window were clusters of scarlet poppies and dark frosted fruits and leaves and deep-tinted satins and ribbons for the fashionable fall hats. The autumn was at hand; the gay people were beginning to shiver in their afternoon drives on the beach, and to talk of going home. Mrs. Ainsworth was going earlier than usual this year, to superintend alterations in her city house, and already the packing up had begun, and all was in confusion in the villa. Coming home from her drive earlier than usual, one evening, Mrs. Ainsworth found Marie standing under the porte-cochère waiting for her with a face white and rigid. As soon as Mrs. Ainsworth alighted from her carriage Marie Sprang toward her, and said in a husky voice,— “ Madame, madame! Come to your room, I implore you; let me speak to you! ”
Thoroughly alarmed, Mrs. Ainsworth followed Marie rapidly, and closing her chamber door exclaimed, —
“Why, Marie, what is the matter? What has happened ? ”
Marie had burst into tears the moment the door had closed.
“ Oh, madame,” she exclaimed, wringing her hands, “ Toinette! Toinette! ” “Is she ill? What has happened? Why don’t you tell me?” cried Mrs. Ainsworth impatiently.
Marie’s sobs grew louder. “ Mon Dieu, such trouble, madame, — such trouble! ”
“ Marie, tell me this moment, I command you, what is the matter with Toinette. Don’t be so silly!” said Mrs. Ainsworth sternly. “ I am displeased with you.”
“Alas, madame, how can I!” cried Marie. “ How can I! Oh, madame, the child ” — Marie buried her face in her hands, and cried aloud. Mrs. Ainsworth sank into a chair, and looked at Marie with a quick terror.
“ Never, Marie! ” she cried. “It is impossible; you are mistaken.”
“ Ah, but she confesses; she has told me. She is an infant; she has no deceit,” sobbed Marie. “ It is true.”
Mrs. Ainsworth sprang to her feet.
“ Who is it? ” she cried. “ He shall marry her. I will go to her this minute.”
“ But she will never tell,” said Marie, in a despairing tone; “ she has said to me that she will die before she will tell. It is no use.”
Mrs. Ainsworth was gone. Calling back her carriage in so hasty and imperative a manner that she greatly surprised and offended her coachman, she drove at once to Toinette’s shop. Without pausing at the door she hurried in. Toinette was not in the shop; sounds of crying came from the little bedroom behind it. Mrs. Ainsworth opened the door. There was Toinette on her knees by the bed, her face buried in the pillows, crying hard. Marie had but just left her. At the sound of steps she looked up, and seeing Mrs. Ainsworth’s face cried out, “Oh!” and buried her face again. The exclamation was a groan.
“My poor child,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, “ look up. Marie has told me; I know all about it. Now don’t cry; but tell me his name. You must be married at once. I will make him marry you.”
Toinette shook her head. “ I cannot tell,” she replied.
“ But you must! ” retorted Mrs. Ainsworth. “ You shall! I will compel you. You shall have justice.”
Toinette lifted her piteous face, with the tears streaming down it, and said in a low voice, speaking very slowly, “ Mrs. Ainsworth, you cannot make me. There is nothing to be done. I cannot tell.”
To all Mrs. Ainsworth’s entreaties, commands, arguments, she made but one reply: “ I cannot tell.” At last, angered by the girl’s obstinacy, Mrs. Ainsworth rose, saying, “ Very well, Toinette; if you wish to be left to yourself, it is your own fault. I thought better of you. I could forgive this wrong that you have done, because you are such a child, and have been deceived: but there is no excuse for your obstinacy in not confiding in your friends now. The man could be made to marry you. ”
“ I do not want him made to marry me,” said Toinette, with a calmer tone than she had hitherto used. “ He said he would, but now he does not want to; I should die if he were made to,” and she fixed her eyes on Mrs. Ainsworth’s face with a look of unspeakable devotion. “ Don’t think any more about me,” she continued. “ I was not good enough for you to be so kind to. I should like to have you forget me.”
Mrs. Ainsworth was thoroughly melted. She wept as she bade Toinette good-by. “ Oh, child, child.” she said, “ why did I ever let you leave my house!”
“It would n’t have made any” — Toinette began; then stopped short, with a look of terror on her face.
Mrs. Ainsworth was not acute enough to see the cause of the girl’s terror. “Yes, it would!” she exclaimed; “nobody could have done you any harm there.”
Toinette looked down and was silent. Not even by the remotest implication would she give any clue to the discovery of the man who had done her this wrong.
The sad news about Toinette spread fast, as such news always does. The different ways in which it was received by different women were simply so many tests and revelations of the women’s own characters.
“ I always thought she was no better than she ought to be,” said one of the fastest women of Newport’s fastest summer set. “ She was as vain as a peacock.”
“ Poor child, what will become of her now! I always felt a great fear for her, with that beautiful face, and alone in the world,” said a good old Quakeress, for whom Toinette had made the daintiest of Quaker caps, and of whom she had sometimes stood in fear, the serene face looked so rigid and unbending.
To all Mrs. Ainsworth’s offers of assistance, Toinette replied that she had plenty of money, — a great deal more than she needed. It was evident that her cruel enemy had been a man of wealth, and that he would not let his victim suffer.
“ That is one comfort,” said Mrs. Aimsworth, in talking the affair over with Kitty Strong. “ She will never suffer. It is plain the man intends to provide for her.”
“Will never suffer!” echoed Kitty. “ How can you use such an expression, Bell! Food and clothing and a roof over one’s head don’t go far towards keeping one from suffering. The child will never know a happy moment.”
“Well, well,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, petulantly, “ you need n’t take me up so; and there’s no use in despising food and clothes and shelter, I can tell you. To be horribly poor would increase Toinette’s suffering very much. I know that; and, for my part, I am glad she is so well off. She has plenty of money.”
“ I am not sure that it would not be better for her in the end if she did not touch a penny of his money,” said Kitty.
“ Pshaw, Kitty Strong!” exclaimed Mrs. Ainsworth. “ Don’t you go putting any such notions into Toinette’s head. I shall get her to come hack to me, if she will. I can easily get the child taken care of.”
“ I hope she will never allow it to be taken from her,” said Kitty, earnestly. “ It will be her only salvation to keep it with her.”
“ You have the queerest ideas, for a girl of your age, I ever heard of,” replied Mrs. Ainsworth. “You don’t seem to think of the disgrace to the girl.”
“I do; but I see an additional disgrace in her abandoning her child. If she has the courage to keep it and work for its support, she takes the first step, and a very long step, towards winning back the confidence and respect of her friends. I think Toinette will do it.”
“ Well, well, you and I never agree about anything,” said Mrs. Ainsworth, with a sigh. “You are the most impracticable girl! When do you mean to marry Lawrence Mason ? ’’
“Never!” cried Kitty, vehemently; “ nor to permit him to ask me, if I can help it.”
“ You can’t,” replied Mrs. Ainsworth, tersely. “ The more you rebuff him, the more in love he is. He told me himself that he did n’t believe there was another girl like you in the world.”
“It is very strange,” said Kitty, “ that he should fancy himself in love with me. I utterly despise him, and all men of his sort. They are worthless, unprincipled idlers, I have no patience with them.”
“That is .just your charm for him,” answered Mrs. Ainsworth, half sadly. “ He does n’t want any of the girls of his set for a wife. He knows you ’re a thousand times better than any of us.”
The winter was long and hard for Toinette. Nobody came near her except Kitty Strong; she went every week, and without ever speaking about Toinette’s misfortune or approaching trial she bent all her energies to the educating the poor child’s moral sense and self - reliance. It was an easier task than Kitty had anticipated. Underlying Toinette’s gentle and pleasure-loving temperament there was a fund of good common sense and simple honesty of nature. It was not difficult for Kitty to make her perceive that true faith to her child and true loyalty to herself admitted of but one course.
Early in the bleak spring the baby came. It was a girl.
“ Oh, I did hope it would be a boy,” were Toinette’s first words. “ I think it might have been a boy! I’m afraid a girl won’t be any better than I have been,” and tears rolled down her cheeks. The baby thrived and grew. It could not have been stronger and more beautiful had it been the welcomed daughter of a noble house. When Kitty Strong first looked into the little creature’s blue eyes, she started. Where had she seen such eyes as those? The resemblance eluded her, but was always recurring and giving her food for conjecture. No word ever passed Toinette’s lips which could give a clue to the name of her child’s father; and whatever her life might have been in the past, it was now free from mystery. The young mother had no longer anything to conceal.
Day by day Toinette’s character grew stronger and better; her face gained a new expression which lifted her prettiness at once to the place of true beauty. Her manner had lost all its old archness and playfulness; in their place was a quiet and partly appealing reticence which had in it the elements of real dignity. The change was so great that when, on Mrs. Ainsworth’s return to Newport, she first saw Toinette that fashionable and light-hearted lady found herself actually embarrassed in the presence of her former maid.
“ Why, Kitty Strong,” she said, in giving her friend an account of the interview, “ I declare I did n’t know which way to look. There was the girl with her baby on her arm, and she showed it to me with as much pride as if it were lawfully her own.”
Kitty Strong had a keen sense of humor; she could not restrain a smile.
“ Well, whose is it, if it isn’t her own?” she said; but continued more soberly, “ You mistook affection for pride, Bell; Toinette cries bitterly over the baby often. Much as she loves it, I think she would rejoice, for its sake, if it were to die.”
“ I should think so!” exclaimed Mrs. Ainsworth. “ It’s a thousand pities it did n’t.”
Kitty Strong’s countenance grew stern. “ Bell,” she said, “ will you never learn to look below surfaces? Will life always be a play to you? ”
“ Oh hush, Kitty,” replied Mrs. Ainsworth ; “ don’t preach. I know the world a great deal better than you do. There isn’t the least use in taking everything so seriously. Things would soon come to an end if everybody were like you.”
They were as far apart as ever, these two women; and it was a blessed thing for Toinette that she had been thrown, at the time of these greatest trials of her character, under Kitty Strong’s influence, and not under Mrs. Ainsworth’s.
One day early in July, Kitty Strong, going into Toinette’s shop, found it in confusion: boxes on the floor, the goods taken from the shelves, and Toinette busily packing.
“Why, Toinette!” she exclaimed, “ what does this mean? ”
“ I am going away, Miss Kitty,” said Toinette, looking up from the floor. “ I should have come to tell you, but Baby has been sick, and I could not leave her. I only decided last week.”
“ Why do you go? You have been succeeding well in the shop,” said Kitty, sternly.
“ Oh, yes, Miss Kitty,” replied Toinette humbly, and her eyes filled with tears; “all the ladies have been very kind to me. I could n’t do so well anywhere in the world. It is n’t that; but I can’t stay, Miss Kitty; I must go. You would n’t want me to if you knew.”
Toinette’s lip quivered; but she did not cry.
“Where are you going, Toinette?” asked Miss Strong, in a kinder voice. She began to surmise Toinette’s motive.
“ I did n’t know of but one place where I could go, where I’d be safe,” said Toinette, meekly. “ I’m going home. There’s the house there, and my mother’s things, what she had; it wasn’t much, but I can take all this furniture. It ’s all mine.”
“ But how can you earn a living there? ” asked Miss Strong, her own eyes full of tears. She knew now why Toinette was going.
“ I’ve written to Ramby,” said Toinette; “ he’s a friend of mine there. He says he’s kept mother’s cow; and he says that there isn’t any milliner on the island. I can get something to do, and mother and I used to get plenty of vegetables out of the garden. I can learn how to take care of it; she always used to; Ramby ’ll show me. Don’t you remember Ramby, Miss Kitty? ”
“ Yes, I remember him very well,” replied Miss Strong. “ He will be a good friend to you. But, Toinette, you and he were engaged, you know.”
“ Yes,” said Toinette simply, with no trace of self-consciousness in her manner; “ that was when we were children. But he knows what has happened to me; I wrote him all about it; so of course he would n’t ever think about marrying me now. But he ’ll be kind to me; he’s real good; he always was. He says that the people there all know what’s happened, so they won’t be surprised when they see Baby. That’s what I dreaded most about going home.”
Mrs. Ainsworth, constrained and almost overawed by Kitty Strong’s entreaties, offered no opposition to Toinette’s plan of going back to Block Island. In the bottom of her heart, she thought it quixotic and foolish, and she would have been ready, in her light way, to wager anything that the girl would soon be back again. But for once Mrs. Ainsworth was thoroughly sobered, when Kitty Strong said, in a trembling voice, “ Bell, for God’s sake don’t do Toinette any further harm! You have ruined her life; don’t ruin her soul also. Let her go; she ’ll never be safe anywhere else.”
“ I think you ’re really cruel, Kitty,” replied Mrs. Ainsworth, half crying. “ I don’t know what I could have done for Toinette more than I did. I can’t keep my servants under my own eye every minute; and it all happened after she left me. I can’t see why you blame me. I’m sure there isn’t anything in the world I would n’t have done to have kept the child from disgracing herself.”
On the morning that Toinette was to set out for Block Island, Miss Strong walked down to say good-by to her. Toinette was all ready, sitting with her baby in her arms; the little rooms were bare and desolate. Miss Strong walked through them, thinking sadly what misery had happened in the little sunny, sheltered-looking room. The floor behind the counter was littered with waste bits of ribbon, lace, cord, all the numberless things of a milliner’s shelves and drawers. Mechanically Miss Strong tossed them back and forth with the point of her parasol, as she stood still, absorbed in her reverie. Suddenly, as she moved a bit of ribbon, she saw a photograph which had lain beneath it. She stooped to pick it up, thinking it might be something Toinette had overlooked. She recoiled as if she were stung, Then she stooped again, took the photograph, and put it in her pocket. She knew now who was the father of Toinette’s child.
When Toinette went on board the Block Island schooner, Skipper Ericson bustled forward to receive her with a cordiality whose very effort to seem unembarrassed was embarrassing. “ Let me take the little ’un,” he said, stretching out his hands to the baby; “let me take it while you get settled.” The child lifted her great blue eyes up to his, and laughed. “ By jingoes! ” cried the skipper, “ what eyes it ’s got! Is’t a boy? ”
“ No, sir, a girl,” replied Toinette, gratefully. “ But I think I’d better not give her to you; she might cry. She is not heavy; I can look after the things just as well with her in my arms,” and Toinette walked over to that part of the deck where freight was stored. The skipper followed.
“Here’s all your things,” he said, pointing to a high pile of boxes. “ I had ’em all piled up together. I guess they ’re all right.” I His eyes lingered admiringly on Toinette, as she moved slowly about, carrying her baby on her left arm. The little fair face, with its yellow curls and blue eyes, nestled against the rich dark glow of Toinette’s cheek, made a picture of rarer beauty than Skipper Ericson knew; but he felt it, and thrilled under it, as any man would. He followed Toinette for a few minutes, like one in a dream, saying to himself all the while, “ Who’d ever think this was old Massy Sprague’s gal!” “What’s the gal goin’ to do on the island? ” “ I wonder if the women folks ’ll go near her.” Skipper Ericson was a man well on in years; he had daughters near Toinette’s age, and he mentally resolved, before Toinette had been half an hour on his schooner, that his girls should be the first to lend the poor girl a hand, now she was in such trouble. “ It’s very easy to see,” he thought, “that she’s no common light-i’-the-head girl. It ’s no badness in her that’s brought her to this pass. I ’d like to serve the villain out for her, that did it. I like the gal’s grit, a-bringin’ her baby right home, where she’s known. That shows she’s all right.”
While these kindly thoughts were revolving in Skipper Ericson’s mind, his hands were very busy hauling, tightening, and slackening ropes; his orders to his crew, that is, to one boy, came fast and loud and somewhat profane, and he did not appear to be taking any notice of Toinette. She had seated herself very nearly in the same spot where she had sat two years before, crying so bitterly at leaving her mother. She did not remember this, but the skipper did.
“ Poor little gal! ” he said. “ That’s jest where she sat afore, crying fit to break her heart; an’ I reckon her heart’s a good deal nearer broke now than’t was then, an’ she ain’t goin’ to shed a tear. Women is curis critters; but this is a good un, if I am any jedge, and I reckon I ought to be.”
The wind was fair and strong, and the little schooner scud before it like a bird. Her prow dipped into the water at each wave, and sent the salt spray flying over the deck; it sprinkled the baby’s face and Toinette’s; the child crowed and stretched out her hands in pleasure.
“ I vow! ” said the skipper, “ that’s a Block Island baby, sure enough; most babies’d have hollered.” Then he added, “ I’m real glad you ’re coming back to the island to live, Toinette. I reckon ye’ll get on fust-rate. I ’ve hearn tell on the street, up to Newport, what a smart milliner you was; an’ our folks do want fixin’ up, that’s sartin.”
Toinette smiled a grave sort of smile, which seemed to mean little more than “Thank you.” “You are very good, Mr. Ericson,” she said. “ I think I can make a living, if the people will give me what there is to be done in my trade.”
“You can count on that, sure,” replied the skipper. “ I’ve heard two or three o’ the women folks speakin’ about it, a’ready; saying’t would be a comfort to have a milliner on the island, ’n’ not send up to Newport for everything. ”
This gave Toinette real pleasure. This was tangible. She had feared that Ramby’s testimony might have been warped by his desire to have her come.
“ Oh, thank you,” she said. “That encourages me; I have been anxious. But I wanted to come so much that I decided to try it.”
Ramby was on the wharf long before, even with the briskest wind, the schooner could have arrived. When he first saw, far to the north, the little swiftmoving white point which he believed to be the vessel bearing Toinette towards him, he clasped both his hands together, and said, aloud, “Now the Lord be praised! there she is a-coming; ” and he walked the shore at a rapid pace, till the schooner rounded in, and he could see the figure of a woman standing on the deck and looking toward the island. Then tears rolled down Ramby’s cheeks in spite of him. “ O Lord, Lord! ” he said, wrestling sternly with himself. “ I must n’t be goin’ on this way; it ‘11 jest upset her, sure. I 've got to look’s if nothin’ was the matter! O Lord, Lord! what ’ll I do? ” and Ramby caught up a handful of salt water, and dashed it furiously in his own face. “You dum fool! ” he said; “ what do I want to go an’ whimper for, like a gal! ”
But when he saw Toinette stepping from the deck to the wharf, holding her baby tight in one arm and stretching the other to him, her eyes full of tears and her lips vainly endeavoring to utter a word of greeting, he cried more than ever, and perhaps did thereby the very best thing for Toinette, for it gave her something to say: —
“Now, please don’t cry, Ramby,” she said; “you don’t know how glad I am to get here. Could n’t you hold Baby for me while I see to the things? ”
Skipper Ericson turned his back, and began to swear hard at his boy, and pull ropes about in a wild fashion, when he saw this scene. If his thoughts had been translated, they would have reduced themselves, I fear, to one comprehensive oath. At that moment the skipper wished ill to several people.
Ramby had brought, at Toinette’s request, a strong wagon; her desire was to go immediately to her home. It did not take long to unload her goods and put them on the wagon; there was but just room for Toinette left.
“Where will you go?” asked Toinette of Ramby.
“ Oh, I shall walk,” he said. “ The horses can’t draw it any faster than I can walk.” And so they set out, Toinette and the baby sitting on a roll of mattresses and bedding in the front of the wagon, and Ramby walking in advance by the side of the horses.
“I expect the house’ll look pretty mean to ye, Toinette,” said Ramby, “after what ye’ve been used to; but it’s tight an’ whole. I’ve mended it up some, an’ I put a new stove in for ye; the old one was n’t good for nothing.”
“ Thank you, Ramby,” said Toinette. Words came hard to her now.
“ Won’t ye be afraid nights, Toinette ? ’’ he continued. " I thought may be ye would, an’ I’ve carried up a bull pup; he’s as fierce as old Janger, an’ if ye can jest coax him a little he won't let nobody come nigh ye.”
“Thank you, Ramby,” replied Toinette. She longed to say more, but she seemed to herself to be paralyzed. She felt no pain, no keen emotion of any kind, as they drew near the house ; only a certain sense of being under a spell, which forced her to move on, to go through with the steps necessary for taking possession of her house.
The baby began to cry. This was what Toinette needed. In soothing her she regained a more natural feeling; and as she entered the old house she burst into tears.
“ There, there !” said Ramby, in his turn the consoler. “ Don’t take on now; cry jest a little, it’s good for ye; but don’t take on, — don’t take on.”
Toinette’s first night in her old home was a terrible one. The wind raged; the bull pup, lonely in the new place, howled all night long; the baby, made ill by the rough sea it had sailed over, wailed and moaned; and to Toinette’s excited imagination there seemed myriads of unexplained sounds about the house. But with the first rays of daylight she regained her courage, and set herself resolutely to work to put her house in order. It was not so desolate as she had feared. The faithful Ramby had repainted all the wood-work of the interior, and mended every broken window; and when Toinette’s belongings were all arranged, the place looked almost pretty. The front room, which had been their old living-room, she converted into her shop and sitting-room; the cupboard built into the wall, which used to hold the old Dutch china, made a very effective niche for the little stock of hats and caps Toinette had brought with her. The china she placed upon hanging shelves on the opposite side of the room, as she had seen dainty china arranged in open cabinets in Mrs. Ainsworth’s house. She had some pictures and books, and gay chintz curtains; it had been the fashion in Mrs. Ainsworth’s set to give pretty things to Toinette for her little house, and the ornaments were all of new value now.
While there was work to do in putting the house in order, Toinette was calm and comparatively cheerful. But when all was done, and she sat down to fold her hands and endure the monotonous quiet of her new life, she was terrified at the sense of dull misery which settled upon her. She actually dreaded the hours when the baby was asleep; often she waked the little creature up, simply because she could not endure the soundless solitude any longer. She had forgotten how still, how lonely, how far from any human habitation, her mother’s home was. She sat always at the window which looked out on the lane by which any one coming to the house would approach. She strained her eyes for the sight, of a human figure, as she might have done if she had been alone on a wreck at sea. The old grave-yard and the deserted meeting-house, which had been to her childhood such sources of delight, now seemed only to increase the desolation and loneliness.
One day Bamby said to her, “ Hev ye been into the old meetin’-us yet, Toinette ? ”
She shuddered, and exclaimed, “ No, indeed ! I wouldn’t go near it for worlds.”
Ramby looked grieved. “ We used to have good times there when we was little,” he said.
“ Oh, don’t, Ramby! Don’t say a word about that time,” replied Toinette. " I don’t believe that was me at all. It must have been somebody else; I don’t feel as if I ever lived here before. I don’t know what possessed me to come back; I think it ’ll kill me to stay in this place.”
Poor Toinette! Her two years of luxurious living — for it had really been luxurious even while she was a servant — had sadly unfitted her for the handto-hand fight with solitude and poverty on which she had entered now. But the baby was her good angel of rescue. Day by day the little thing grew more winning, more absorbing; and one by one the farmers’ wives, who came at first either out of curiosity or merely to make some small purchase, began to find out that Toinette was sweet and lovable, and could talk in an interesting way; so they would linger and chat with her; and at last they got into the way of occasionally taking an early cup of tea with her, when they came up of an afternoon on some errand. Toinette offered this in the first instance very shyly ; but finding it well received, she began to make a practice of the hospitality, and enjoyed serving the fragrant drink in her antique Dutch cups as much as any fashionable lady at a kettle-drum in Newport. Her tea was her only luxury; she had a chest of such tea as is not sold in shops. It was one of the relics of a past Toinette was trying hard to forget; but the Block Island women knew nothing of that, and in fact were not familiar enough with tea to do more than wonder why Toinette’s tasted so unlike that they were in the habit of having at home. It must be something in the cups, they thought.
The weeks and months sped on, and Toinette’s first sense of unendurable wretchedness slowly diminished, and settled into a quiet melancholy, which was so calm and so quickly changed into a gentle cheerfulness by the presence of any kindly human being to whom she could talk, that nobody realized how sad she really was.
Nobody but Ramby. Ramby saw her oftener than any one. Ramby would have gone every day if he had dared, but he feared to displease her. There was a shade of something which could not be defined in Toinette’s manner to him, which kept him ill at ease. It was unconscious in Toinette; it was her instinct that his love was still unchanged. Her reason told her better all the time; reason said that no man would continue to love a woman who had disgraced herself by such a sin as hers. It was on this certainty that Toinette had permitted herself to rest in all her plans for returning to Block Island, and availing herself of Ramby’s kind help in so many ways. But Ramby’s eyes were the eyes of unqualified devotion; Ramby’s voice was the voice of a lover; and his tender sympathy in Toinette’s sorrow and solitude was touching in its unselfishness. His affection was clearer-sighted than any mere kindliness could be. Everybody felt that for Toinette. Her meekness and courtesy, and effort to please, had won the whole island to her. Everybody took an interest in her making a living by the little shop; everybody helped her in some fashion or other; everybody liked her; and everybody said, “She seems happy here. She’s a good girl, and’s bringing up her baby’s a woman ought to.”
But Ramby knew better. He knew that Toinette was unhappy; he saw that each month she was a little thinner; and if she did not seem each month a little sadder, it was only because she grew each day more sweetly resigned to her fate. It was harder for Ramby than for Toinette. Night after night the faithful fellow walked up and down the shore, trying to think what he could do for this woman he so loved.
“ If she ’d only be my wife, and let me take care of her, that’d be something,” he said to himself over and over.
“ Then she need n’t work so hard.”
Ramby was now a well-to-do fellow, measured by the simple standards of Block Island, His father had been dead for some time, and Ramby alone owned the farm and the fishing-schooner, and could have made a fair living off either, He had put his little cabin in excellent repair, owned cows and horses, and had money in a bank in Newport. "'T would n’t be nothin’,” he said, “ after the way she’s lived up there; but she could be as comfortable ’s anybody here. An’ if she 'd only let me take care of her, seems ’s if I could stand it better,” he reiterated to himself night after night, as he trod his lonely path. At last, without hope, but in the courage of despair, he broached the idea to Toinette.
“Toinette,” he began, “could n’t ye — could n’t ye, now, noways, make up your mind to let me take care of ye? Ye’re workin’ a great deal too hard; ye can’t stand it. An’ ye ’re a-pinin' away here all the time; ye’re so lonesome; ’t ain’t good for nobody. Now, down to my place it’s real lively ; there ’s people a-comin’ an’ goin’, and the schooners comin’ in. Ye’d like it better; an’ it would be a heap better for Baby;” and Ramby, after one quick, yearning look into loinette’s face, cast his eyes down to the floor, and waited her answer. Toinette did not speak for some seconds. His fear changed into mortal apprehension. “ Oh, Toinette, ye ain’t angry with me, be ye?” he cried. “ Don’t ye be; I won’t never say such a word again. I know I ain’t good enough for ye, and wa’n’t never; but ye ’re so lonely, Toinette, I thought may be it would n’t be quite so hard for you if ye had anybody, even if ’t was me.”
“ Ramby,” replied Toinette, slowly, “ you ’re the best man I ever have known in my life, but” — And she began to cry.
“Oh, don’t now, don’t!” exclaimed Ramby. " can’t bear to see ye cry. I won’t never say another word about it.”
Toinette smiled very sadly, and continued, “ I don’t think it would be right for me to let you marry a woman who had done what I’ve done, Ramby. You don’t know how folks would talk about it.”
Ramby’s eyes flashed. “ I'd like to hear anybody talk about you, Toinette! Oh, my little sweet gal, don’t ye ever go to feel so; nobody’s ever blamed ye a mite; there ain’t anybody on this island but what speaks well on ye, Toinette. Ye need n’t go a-undervallyin yerself that way, now, I tell you.”
“ They are all very good,” said Toinette; “a great deal better than I deserve. But, Ramby, dear, supposing I could n’t love you ’s you love me; you would n’t want me for your wife, would you ? And I could n’t, Ramby, — I could n’t love anybody any more except Baby.”
“ Ye need n’t say anything about that, Toinette,” exclaimed Ramby, his face glowing with hope. “ If ye ’ll only come and live with me, and let me take care of ye, I ain’t afeard but what ye ’ll love me some! Why, Toinette, ye used to love me once, and there ain't any reason why ye should n’t again. Oh, say ye ’ll come! ”
“I know you’ll always be good to Baby,” said Toinette, timidly.
“ Don’t I love her now’s well’s if she was mine?” asked Ramby, triumphantly. “Ain’t she yours? Ain’t that enough for me, don’t ye think ? ”
It would be useless to deny that when Block Island heard that Toinette and Ramby had been married at Parson Plummer’s house one morning, very early, and that Toinette’s shop was now in the north room of Ramby’s cabin, some ill-natured speeches were made. But Toinette’s face disarmed all malice. The new look of solemn purpose on her countenance brought out more clearly the increased spirituality of her features; and people who had gone with but dubious good-will to see her in her new home went away sobered, saying among themselves, —
“ She don’t look as if she was long for this world. And she ’s done it for the child’s sake. There ain’t anybody would have stood by the young one as Ramby will.”
The people were right. Toinette’s nature was formed for sunshine; there was nothing rugged about her. She could not thrive, she could not even live, in an adverse air and under the weight of sorrow. She had no disease; she simply drooped, very gradually, — so gradually that even the watchful and affectionate Ramby was lulled at last into a sense of security, so wonted had he become to her extreme feebleness. He tended her as if she had been his child instead of his wife, without seeming to know that he had labors to perform. He did all that was to be done for her and for the child ; and was content so long as he saw her sitting in her chair, her slender fingers gracefully employed with the bright ribbons, or on the embroideries which she did so beautifully. When at last the day came on which Toinette said in the morning, “ Ramby, I can’t get up to-day. You might as well go for the doctor, dear,” he was as appalled as if she had been stricken down by some sudden attack of illness. And when the doctor, on feeling her pulse, exclaimed in astonishment, “ Why, how long has she been in this condition ?” Ramby replied eagerly, " Only just this morning, sir; she was took just before I came for you. She’s been real well all summer.”
Toinette looked up at the doctor and smiled ; and when Ramby left the room for a moment she said, still smiling, “ I did n’t tell him anything, doctor. You tell him, will you ? I’ve known all summer I was a-going pretty fast. It’s no use your doing anything for me, doctor, and it’s a great deal better I should die. He ’ll take good care of Baby.”
Toinette sank now very rapidly. Having given up the effort at concealment of her weakness, she had no longer a motive for struggling with it; and only one week from the day the doctor had been called to her she was buried in the old grave-yard, by the side of her mother. The next grave to hers was an old and sunken mound, whose head-stone of slate had fallen, and was half buried in grass. After the funeral, as Ramby sat alone on the ground, the baby on his knees, he idly pulled away the tangled grass, and slowly studied out the inscription on the stone. It told that one “ Acres Tois ” had been buried there in the year 1684, “ aged one hundred and one years.”
“O Lord!” groaned Ramby, aloud, “ hev I got to live so long as that, I wonder! O Lord! O Lord!”
The baby, wondering at the tone, put up one little hand and touched the black face which had never before looked into hers without a smile. The touch recalled Ramby to himself. It seemed like a voice from Toinette. Kissing the baby over and over, he hugged her tight to his bosom, rose, and walked down the hill. He was not wholly separated from Toinette so long as Toinette’s child lay in his arms. From that hour he never left the child for a moment. When the weather was not fair enough for him to take her out to sea in the schooner, he did not fish. When it was too cold or stormy for her to sit in her wagon and watch him, as he worked on the farm, he stayed idle in the; house. The child grew strong and beautiful, and by the time she was six years old was as fearless a little sailor as any boy that went out of Block Island harbor.
Many a time, strangers, visiting the island, happening to see this goldenhaired, blue-eyed little girl standing like a fairy on the bow of a fishingboat, and waving laughing signals to its black skipper, asked the meaning of the strange sight; and many a one, hearing the touching tale of Toinette and her baby and the faithful devotion of Ramby, made excuse to walk down to his cabin and see the child. But she was timid with strangers, and could never be coaxed away from Ramby’s knee. She answered still to the name of Baby, and was called so all along the shore. Ramby thought when she grew up he should be able to call her by her mother’s name, but as yet he could not say the word Toinette save in his thoughts. He wrote to Mrs. Ainsworth, a few weeks after Toinette’s death, and told her all that his simple letter-writing could tell about her last days. Mrs. Ainsworth shed a tear or two over the letter, and talked for a few days about going down to Block Island and taking the baby to bring up. But she soon forgot the impulse, or thought better of it, and before long the memory of Toinette had died out of her mind; or, if it were recalled in any way, drew from her nothing more than a nonchalant ejaculation of " Poor little thing, what a pity she came to such an end! She was a good little soul, and I’ve never seen anybody from that day to this that could trim a cap as she could.”
Kitty Strong had a better memory and a better heart. The face of Toinette rose up between her and her friend Mrs. Ainsworth many times and in many places; and there was one man, whom she was by peculiar circumstances forced to meet continually, to whom it was wellnigh impossible for her to extend even the most ordinary courtesy. Her coldness and distance were all thrown away upon him, however. So far as it was in the capacity of his poor and shallow nature to love, he had been in love with Kitty Strong for years. At last the day came when, in spite of her avoidance, in spite of her evident dislike, he asked her to be his wife. Rendered obtuse by vanity, and probably having an element of cruelty at bottom, he had obstinately resolved that, come what would, cost what it might, sooner or later he would win for his wife this upright, indomitable girl, who had so scorned him and his money.
Looking him steadily in the eye, Kitty Strong said: " You know very well, Mr. Mason, that I have done all in my power to prevent your ever saying such words as these to me.” Then, going to her writing-desk, she took from a secret drawer a small photograph, and holding it out to him continued in a sterner tone, “ This photograph of yours I found among poor Toinette’s things. The child never betrayed you. Had you had delicacy enough to respect my evident avoidance of your every attention, I would have spared you the shame of knowing why and how much and how long I have despised you.”
It was three years since Toinette had fled from Lawrence Mason; even her name and her face had become dim in his hardened mind; but he took the photograph mechanically from Kitty Strong’s hand, and, bowing his head, went out silent from her presence.
Many years afterward, when he was a cynical, selfish, broken-down old profligate, leading a desolate and suffering life in his lonely and luxurious home, people said,—
“ What a pity he never married! They say he never could get over his love for Kitty Strong. It might have saved him if he had married her.”
Into poor Toinette’s guileless and loving heart no thought of resentment towards Lawrence Mason had ever entered; but she was avenged.