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The Tides of Barnegat

F >> F. Hopkinson Smith >> The Tides of Barnegat



This etext was produced by Duncan Harrod.




Title: The Tides Of Barnegat

Author: F. Hopkinson Smith



THE TIDES OF BARNEGAT




CHAPTER I



THE DOCTOR'S GIG


One lovely spring morning--and this story begins
on a spring morning some fifty years or more ago--
a joy of a morning that made one glad to be alive,
when the radiant sunshine had turned the ribbon
of a road that ran from Warehold village to Barnegat
Light and the sea to satin, the wide marshes to
velvet, and the belts of stunted pines to bands of
purple--on this spring morning, then, Martha Sands,
the Cobdens' nurse, was out with her dog Meg. She
had taken the little beast to the inner beach for a
bath--a custom of hers when the weather was fine
and the water not too cold--and was returning to
Warehold by way of the road, when, calling the dog
to her side, she stopped to feast her eyes on the
picture unrolled at her feet.

To the left of where she stood curved the coast,
glistening like a scimitar, and the strip of yellow
beach which divided the narrow bay from the open
sea; to the right, thrust out into the sheen of silver,
lay the spit of sand narrowing the inlet, its edges
scalloped with lace foam, its extreme point dominated
by the grim tower of Barnegat Light; aloft,
high into the blue, soared the gulls, flashing like
jewels as they lifted their breasts to the sun, while
away and beyond the sails of the fishing-boats, gray
or silver in their shifting tacks, crawled over the
wrinkled sea.

The glory of the landscape fixed in her mind,
Martha gathered her shawl about her shoulders,
tightened the strings of her white cap, smoothed out
her apron, and with the remark to Meg that he'd
"never see nothin' so beautiful nor so restful,"
resumed her walk.

They were inseparable, these two, and had been
ever since the day she had picked him up outside
the tavern, half starved and with a sore patch on his
back where some kitchen-maid had scalded him.
Somehow the poor outcast brought home to her a sad
page in her own history, when she herself was homeless
and miserable, and no hand was stretched out
to her. So she had coddled and fondled him, gaining
his confidence day by day and talking to him by the
hour of whatever was uppermost in her mind.

Few friendships presented stronger contrasts: She
stout and motherly-looking--too stout for any waistline
--with kindly blue eyes, smooth gray hair--
gray, not white--her round, rosy face, framed in a
cotton cap, aglow with the freshness of the morning
--a comforting, coddling-up kind of woman of fifty,
with a low, crooning voice, gentle fingers, and soft,
restful hollows about her shoulders and bosom for the
heads of tired babies; Meg thin, rickety, and sneak-
eyed, with a broken tail that hung at an angle, and
but one ear (a black-and-tan had ruined the other)--
a sandy-colored, rough-haired, good-for-nothing cur
of multifarious lineage, who was either crouching
at her feet or in full cry for some hole in a fence
or rift in a wood-pile where he could flatten out
and sulk in safety.

Martha continued her talk to Meg. While she
had been studying the landscape he had taken the
opportunity to wallow in whatever came first, and
his wet hair was bristling with sand and matted with
burrs.

"Come here, Meg--you measly rascal!" she cried,
stamping her foot. "Come here, I tell ye!"

The dog crouched close to the ground, waited until
Martha was near enough to lay her hand upon him,
and then, with a backward spring, darted under a
bush in full blossom.

"Look at ye now!" she shouted in a commanding
tone. "'Tain't no use o' my washin' ye. Ye're
full o' thistles and jest as dirty as when I throwed
ye in the water. Come out o' that, I tell ye! Now,
Meg, darlin'"--this came in a coaxing tone--"come
out like a good dog--sure I'm not goin' in them
brambles to hunt ye!"

A clatter of hoofs rang out on the morning air.
A two-wheeled gig drawn by a well-groomed sorrel
horse and followed by a brown-haired Irish setter
was approaching. In it sat a man of thirty, dressed
in a long, mouse-colored surtout with a wide cape
falling to the shoulders. On his head was a soft gray
hat and about his neck a white scarf showing above
the lapels of his coat. He had thin, shapely legs,
a flat waist, and square shoulders, above which rose
a clean-shaven face of singular sweetness and refinement.

At the sound of the wheels the tattered cur poked
his head from between the blossoms, twisted his one
ear to catch the sound, and with a side-spring bounded
up the road toward the setter.

"Well, I declare, if it ain't Dr. John Cavendish
and Rex!" Martha exclaimed, raising both hands
in welcome as the horse stopped beside her. "Good-
mornin' to ye, Doctor John. I thought it was you,
but the sun blinded me, and I couldn't see. And
ye never saw a better nor a brighter mornin'. These
spring days is all blossoms, and they ought to be.
Where ye goin', anyway, that ye're in such a hurry?
Ain't nobody sick up to Cap'n Holt's, be there?"
she added, a shade of anxiety crossing her face.

"No, Martha; it's the dressmaker," answered the
doctor, tightening the reins on the restless sorrel as
he spoke. The voice was low and kindly and had a
ring of sincerity through it.

"What dressmaker?"

"Why, Miss Gossaway!" His hand was extended
now--that fine, delicately wrought, sympathetic hand
that had soothed so many aching heads.

"You've said it," laughed Martha, leaning over
the wheel so as to press his fingers in her warm
palm. "There ain't no doubt 'bout that skinny
fright being 'Miss,' and there ain't no doubt 'bout
her stayin' so. Ann Gossaway she is, and Ann Gossaway
she'll die. Is she took bad?" she continued, a
merry, questioning look lighting up her kindly face,
her lips pursed knowingly.

"No, only a sore throat" the doctor replied, loosening
his coat.

"Throat!" she rejoined, with a wry look on her
face. "Too bad 'twarn't her tongue. If ye could
snip off a bit o' that some day it would help folks
considerable 'round here."

The doctor laughed in answer, dropped the lines
over the dashboard and leaned forward in his seat,
the sun lighting up his clean-cut face. Busy as he
was--and there were few busier men in town, as
every hitching-post along the main street of Warehold
village from Billy Tatham's, the driver of the
country stage, to Captain Holt's, could prove--he
always had time for a word with the old nurse.

"And where have YOU been, Mistress Martha?"
he asked, with a smile, dropping his whip into the
socket, a sure sign that he had a few more minutes
to give her.

"Oh, down to the beach to git some o' the dirt off
Meg. Look at him--did ye ever see such a rapscallion!
Every time I throw him in he's into the
sand ag'in wallowin' before I kin git to him."

The doctor bent his head, and for an instant
watched the two dogs: Meg circling about Rex, all
four legs taut, his head jerking from side to side in
his eagerness to be agreeable to his roadside acquaintance;
the agate-eyed setter returning Meg's attentions
with the stony gaze of a club swell ignoring a
shabby relative. The doctor smiled thoughtfully.
There was nothing he loved to study so much as dogs
--they had a peculiar humor of their own, he often
said, more enjoyable sometimes than that of men--
then he turned to Martha again.

"And why are you away from home this morning
of all others?" he asked. "I thought Miss Lucy
was expected from school to-day?"

"And so she is, God bless her! And that's why
I'm here. I was that restless I couldn't keep still,
and so I says to Miss Jane, 'I'm goin' to the beach
with Meg and watch the ships go by; that's the only
thing that'll quiet my nerves. They're never in a
hurry with everybody punchin' and haulin' them.'
Not that there's anybody doin' that to me, 'cept like
it is to-day when I'm waitin' for my blessed baby to
come back to me. Two years, doctor--two whole
years since I had my arms round her. Wouldn't ye
think I'd be nigh crazy?"

"She's too big for your arms now, Martha,"
laughed the doctor, gathering up his reins. "She's
a woman--seventeen, isn't she?"

"Seventeen and three months, come the fourteenth
of next July. But she's not a woman to me, and she
never will be. She's my wee bairn that I took from
her mother's dyin' arms and nursed at my own breast,
and she'll be that wee bairn to me as long as I live.
Ye'll be up to see her, won't ye, doctor?"

"Yes, to-night. How's Miss Jane?" As he made
the inquiry his eyes kindled and a slight color suffused
his cheeks.

"She'll be better for seein' ye," the nurse answered
with a knowing look. Then in a louder and
more positive tone, "Oh, ye needn't stare so with
them big brown eyes o' yourn. Ye can't fool old
Martha, none o' you young people kin. Ye think
I go round with my eyelids sewed up. Miss Jane
knows what she wants--she's proud, and so are you;
I never knew a Cobden nor a Cavendish that warn't.
I haven't a word to say--it'll be a good match when
it comes off. Where's that Meg? Good-by, doctor.
I won't keep ye a minute longer from MISS Gossaway.
I'm sorry it ain't her tongue, but if it's only
her throat she may get over it. Go 'long, Meg!"

Dr. Cavendish laughed one of his quiet laughs--
a laugh that wrinkled the lines about his eyes, with
only a low gurgle in his throat for accompaniment,
picked up his whip, lifted his hat in mock courtesy
to the old nurse, and calling to Rex, who, bored by
Meg's attentions, had at last retreated under the gig,
chirruped to his horse, and drove on.

Martha watched the doctor and Rex until they
were out of sight, walked on to the top of the low
hill, and finding a seat by the roadside--her breath
came short these warm spring days--sat down to
rest, the dog stretched out in her lap. The little outcast
had come to her the day Lucy left Warehold
for school, and the old nurse had always regarded
him with a certain superstitious feeling, persuading
herself that nothing would happen to her bairn as
long as this miserable dog was well cared for.

"Ye heard what Doctor John said about her bein'
a woman, Meg?" she crooned, when she had caught
her breath. "And she with her petticoats up to her
knees! That's all he knows about her. Ye'd know
better than that, Meg, wouldn't ye--if ye'd seen her
grow up like he's done? But grown up or not, Meg"
--here she lifted the dog's nose to get a clearer view
of his sleepy eyes--"she's my blessed baby and she's
comin' home this very day, Meg, darlin'; d'ye hear
that, ye little ruffian? And she's not goin' away
ag'in, never, never. There'll be nobody drivin'
round in a gig lookin' after her--nor nobody else
as long as I kin help it. Now git up and come
along; I'm that restless I can't sit still," and sliding
the dog from her lap, she again resumed her walk
toward Warehold.

Soon the village loomed in sight, and later on the
open gateway of "Yardley," the old Cobden Manor,
with its two high brick posts topped with white balls
and shaded by two tall hemlocks, through which
could be seen a level path leading to an old colonial
house with portico, white pillars supporting a balcony,
and a sloping roof with huge chimneys and
dormer windows.

Martha quickened her steps, and halting at the
gate-posts, paused for a moment with her eyes up the
road. It was yet an hour of the time of her bairn's
arrival by the country stage, but her impatience was
such that she could not enter the path without this
backward glance. Meg, who had followed behind
his mistress at a snail's pace, also came to a halt and,
as was his custom, picked out a soft spot in the road
and sat down on his haunches.

Suddenly the dog sprang up with a quick yelp
and darted inside the gate. The next instant a young
girl in white, with a wide hat shading her joyous
face, jumped from behind one of the big hemlocks
and with a cry pinioned Martha's arms to her side.

"Oh, you dear old thing, you! where have you
been? Didn't you know I was coming by the early
stage?" she exclaimed in a half-querulous tone.

The old nurse disengaged one of her arms from
the tight clasp of the girl, reached up her hand until
she found the soft cheek, patted it gently for an
instant as a blind person might have done, and then
reassured, hid her face on Lucy's shoulder and burst
into tears. The joy of the surprise had almost
stopped her breath.

"No, baby, no," she murmured. "No, darlin',
I didn't. I was on the beach with Meg. No, no--
Oh, let me cry, darlin'. To think I've got you at
last. I wouldn't have gone away, darlin', but they
told me you wouldn't be here till dinner-time. Oh,
darlin', is it you? And it's all true, isn't it? and
ye've come back to me for good? Hug me close. Oh,
my baby bairn, my little one! Oh, you precious!"
and she nestled the girl's head on her bosom, smoothing
her cheek as she crooned on, the tears running
down her cheeks.

Before the girl could reply there came a voice
calling from the house: "Isn't she fine, Martha?"
A woman above the middle height, young and of
slender figure, dressed in a simple gray gown and
without her hat, was stepping from the front porch
to meet them.

"Too fine, Miss Jane, for her old Martha," the
nurse called back. "I've got to love her all over
again. Oh, but I'm that happy I could burst meself
with joy! Give me hold of your hand, darlin'--
I'm afraid I'll lose ye ag'in if ye get out of reach
of me."

The two strolled slowly up the path to meet Jane,
Martha patting the girl's arm and laying her cheek
against it as she walked. Meg had ceased barking
and was now sniffing at Lucy's skirts, his bent tail
wagging slowly, his sneaky eyes looking up into
Lucy's face.

"Will he bite, Martha?" she asked, shrinking to
one side. She had an aversion to anything physically
imperfect, no matter how lovable it might be to
others. This tattered example struck her as particularly
objectionable.

"No, darlin'--nothin' 'cept his food," and Martha
laughed.

"What a horrid little beast!" Lucy said half
aloud to herself, clinging all the closer to the nurse.
"This isn't the dog sister Jane wrote me about, is
it? She said you loved him dearly--you don't, do
you?"

"Yes, that's the same dog. You don't like him,
do you, darlin'?"

"No, I think he's awful," retorted Lucy in a positive
tone.

"It's all I had to pet since you went away,"
Martha answered apologetically.

"Well, now I'm home, give him away, please.
Go away, you dreadful dog!" she cried, stamping
her foot as Meg, now reassured, tried to jump upon
her.

The dog fell back, and crouching close to Martha's
side raised his eyes appealingly, his ear and tail
dragging.

Jane now joined them. She had stopped to pick
some blossoms for the house.

"Why, Lucy, what's poor Meg done?" she asked,
as she stooped over and stroked the crestfallen beast's
head. "Poor old doggie--we all love you, don't
we?"

"Well, just please love him all to yourselves,
then," retorted Lucy with a toss of her head. "I
wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs. I never
saw anything so ugly. Get away, you little brute!"

"Oh, Lucy, dear, don't talk so," replied the older
sister in a pitying tone. "He was half starved when
Martha found him and brought him home--and look
at his poor back--"

"No, thank you; I don't want to look at his poor
back, nor his poor tail, nor anything else poor about
him. And you will send him away, won't you, like
a dear good old Martha?" she added, patting
Martha's shoulder in a coaxing way. Then encircling
Jane's waist with her arm, the two sisters sauntered
slowly back to the house.

Martha followed behind with Meg.

Somehow, and for the first time where Lucy was
concerned, she felt a tightening of her heart-strings,
all the more painful because it had followed so
closely upon the joy of their meeting. What had
come over her bairn, she said to herself with a sigh,
that she should talk so to Meg--to anything that
her old nurse loved, for that matter? Jane interrupted
her reveries.

"Did you give Meg a bath, Martha?" she asked
over her shoulder. She had seen the look of disappointment
in the old nurse's face and, knowing
the cause, tried to lighten the effect.

"Yes--half water and half sand. Doctor John
came along with Rex shinin' like a new muff, and
I was ashamed to let him see Meg. He's comin' up
to see you to-night, Lucy, darlin'," and she bent forward
and tapped the girl's shoulder to accentuate
the importance of the information.

Lucy cut her eye in a roguish way and twisted
her pretty head around until she could look into
Jane's eyes.

"Who do you think he's coming to see, sister?"

"Why, you, you little goose. They're all coming
--Uncle Ephraim has sent over every day to find out
when you would be home, and Bart Holt was here
early this morning, and will be back to-night."

"What does Bart Holt look like?"--she had
stopped in her walk to pluck a spray of lilac blossoms.
"I haven't seen him for years; I hear he's
another one of your beaux," she added, tucking the
flowers into Jane's belt. "There, sister, that's just
your color; that's what that gray dress needs. Tell
me, what's Bart like?"

"A little like Captain Nat, his father," answered
Jane, ignoring Lucy's last inference, "not so stout
and--"

"What's he doing?"

"Nothin', darlin', that's any good," broke in
Martha from behind the two. "He's sailin' a boat
when he ain't playin' cards or scarin' everybody
down to the beach with his gun, or shyin' things at
Meg."

"Don't you mind anything Martha says, Lucy,"
interrupted Jane in a defensive tone. "He's got
a great many very good qualities; he has no mother
and the captain has never looked after him. It's a
great wonder that he is not worse than he is."

She knew Martha had spoken the truth, but she
still hoped that her influence might help him, and
then again, she never liked to hear even her acquaintances
criticised.

"Playing cards! That all?" exclaimed Lucy,
arching her eyebrows; her sister's excuses for the
delinquent evidently made no impression on her.
"I don't think playing cards is very bad; and I don't
blame him for throwing anything he could lay his
hands on at this little wretch of Martha's. We all
played cards up in our rooms at school. Miss Sarah
never knew anything about it--she thought we were
in bed, and it was just lovely to fool her. And what
does the immaculate Dr. John Cavendish look like?
Has he changed any?" she added with a laugh.

"No," answered Jane simply.

"Does he come often?" She had turned her
head now and was looking from under her lids at
Martha. "Just as he used to and sit around, or has
he--" Here she lifted her eyebrows in inquiry, and
a laugh bubbled out from between her lips.

"Yes, that's just what he does do," cried Martha
in a triumphant tone; "every minute he kin git.
And he can't come too often to suit me. I jest love
him, and I'm not the only one, neither, darlin',"
she added with a nod of her head toward Jane.

"And Barton Holt as well?" persisted Lucy.
"Why, sister, I didn't suppose there would be a man
for me to look at when I came home, and you've got
two already! Which one are you going to take?"
Here her rosy face was drawn into solemn lines.

Jane colored. "You've got to be a great tease,
Lucy," she answered as she leaned over and kissed
her on the cheek. "I'm not in the back of the doctor's
head, nor he in mine--he's too busy nursing the
sick--and Bart's a boy!"

"Why, he's twenty-five years old, isn't he?"
exclaimed Lucy in some surprise.

"Twenty-five years young, dearie--there's a difference,
you know. That's why I do what I can to
help him. If he'd had the right influences in his life
and could be thrown a little more with nice women
it would help make him a better man. Be very good
to him, please, even if you do find him a little
rough."

They had mounted the steps of the porch and
were now entering the wide colonial hall--a bare
white hall, with a staircase protected by spindling
mahogany banisters and a handrail. Jane passed
into the library and seated herself at her desk. Lucy
ran on upstairs, followed by Martha to help unpack
her boxes and trunks.

When they reached the room in which Martha had
nursed her for so many years--the little crib still
occupied one corner--the old woman took the wide
hat from the girl's head and looked long and searchingly
into her eyes.

"Let me look at ye, my baby," she said, as she
pushed Lucy's hair back from her forehead; "same
blue eyes, darlin', same pretty mouth I kissed so
often, same little dimples ye had when ye lay in my
arms, but ye've changed--how I can't tell. Somehow,
the face is different."

Her hands now swept over the full rounded
shoulders and plump arms of the beautiful girl, and
over the full hips.

"The doctor's right, child," she said with a sigh,
stepping back a pace and looking her over critically;
"my baby's gone--you've filled out to be a woman."




CHAPTER II



SPRING BLOSSOMS


For days the neighbors in and about the village of
Warehold had been looking forward to Lucy's home-
coming as one of the important epochs in the history
of the Manor House, quite as they would have
done had Lucy been a boy and the expected function
one given in honor of the youthful heir's majority.
Most of them had known the father and mother of
these girls, and all of them loved Jane, the gentle
mistress of the home--a type of woman eminently
qualified to maintain its prestige.

It had been a great house in its day. Built in
early Revolutionary times by Archibald Cobden, who
had thrown up his office under the Crown and openly
espoused the cause of the colonists, it had often been
the scene of many of the festivities and social events
following the conclusion of peace and for many years
thereafter: the rooms were still pointed out in which
Washington and Lafayette had slept, as well as the
small alcove where the dashing Bart de Klyn passed
the night whenever he drove over in his coach with
outriders from Bow Hill to Barnegat and the sea.

With the death of Colonel Creighton Cobden, who
held a commission in the War of 1812, all this magnificence
of living had changed, and when Morton
Cobden, the father of Jane and Lucy, inherited the
estate, but little was left except the Manor House,
greatly out of repair, and some invested property
which brought in but a modest income. On his
death-bed Morton Cobden's last words were a prayer
to Jane, then eighteen, that she would watch over
and protect her younger sister, a fair-haired child
of eight, taking his own and her dead mother's place,
a trust which had so dominated Jane's life that it
had become the greater part of her religion.

Since then she had been the one strong hand in
the home, looking after its affairs, managing their
income, and watching over every step of her sister's
girlhood and womanhood. Two years before she had
placed Lucy in one of the fashionable boarding-
schools of Philadelphia, there to study "music and
French," and to perfect herself in that "grace of
manner and charm of conversation," which the two
maiden ladies who presided over its fortunes claimed
in their modest advertisements they were so competent
to teach. Part of the curriculum was an enforced
absence from home of two years, during which
time none of her own people were to visit her except
in case of emergency.

To-night, the once famous house shone with something
of its old-time color. The candles were lighted
in the big bronze candelabra--the ones which came
from Paris; the best glass and china and all the old
plate were brought out and placed on the sideboard
and serving-tables; a wood fire was started (the nights
were yet cold), its cheery blaze lighting up the brass
fender and andirons before which many of Colonel
Cobden's cronies had toasted their shins as they
sipped their toddies in the old days; easy-chairs
and hair-cloth sofas were drawn from the walls; the
big lamps lighted, and many minor details perfected
for the comfort of the expected guests.

Jane entered the drawing-room in advance of Lucy
and was busying herself putting the final touches
to the apartment,--arranging the sprays of blossoms
over the clock and under the portrait of Morton Cobden,
which looked calmly down on the room from its
place on the walls, when the door opened softly and
Martha--the old nurse had for years been treated
as a member of the family--stepped in, bowing and
curtsying as would an old woman in a play, the
skirt of her new black silk gown that Ann Gossaway
had made for her held out between her plump fingers,
her mob-cap with its long lace strings bobbing with
every gesture. With her rosy cheeks, silver-rimmed
spectacles, self-satisfied smile, and big puffy sleeves,
she looked as if she might have stepped out of one
of the old frames lining the walls.

"What do ye think of me, Miss Jane? I'm proud
as a peacock--that I am!" she cried, twisting herself
about. "Do ye know, I never thought that
skinny dressmaker could do half as well. Is it long
enough?" and she craned her head in the attempt
to see the edge of the skirt.

"Fits you beautifully, Martha. You look fine,"
answered Jane in all sincerity, as she made a survey
of the costume. "How does Lucy like it?"

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