Part 35 (1/2)
The farm-house stood on high ground, commanding an uninterrupted sweep of the horizon. As they drew near it, Whitaker paused and turned, narrowing his eyes as he attempted to read the riddle of the enigmatic, amber-tinted distances.
To north and east the island fell away in irregular terraces to wide, crescent beaches whose horns, joining in the northeast, formed the sandy spit. To west and south the moorlands billowed up to the brink of a precipitous bluff. In the west, Whitaker noted absently, a great congregation of gulls were milling amid a cacophony of screams, just beyond the declivity. Far over the northern water the dark promontory was blending into violet shadows which, in turn, blended imperceptibly with the more sombre shade of the sea. Beyond it nothing was discernable. Southeast from it the coast, backed by dusky highlands, ran on for several miles to another, but less impressive, headland; its line, at an angle to that of the deserted island, forming a funnel-like tideway for the intervening waters fully six miles at its broadest in the north, narrowing in the east to something over three miles.
There was not a sail visible in all the blue cup of the sea.
”I don't know,” said Whitaker slowly, as much to himself as to his companion. ”It's odd ... it pa.s.ses me....”
”Can't you tell where we are?” she inquired anxiously.
”Not definitely. I know, of course, we must be somewhere off the south coast of New England: somewhere between Cape Cod and Block Island. But I've never sailed up this way--never east of Orient Point; my boating has been altogether confined to Long Island Sound.... And my geographical memory is as hazy as the day. There _are_ islands off the south coast of Ma.s.sachusetts--a number of them: Nantucket, you know, and Martha's Vineyard. This might be either--only it isn't, because they're summer resorts. That”--he swept his hand toward the land in the northeast--”might be either, and probably is one of 'em. At the same time, it may be the mainland. I don't know.”
”Then ... then what are we to do?”
”I should say, possess our souls in patience, since we have no boat. At least, until we can signal some pa.s.sing vessel. There aren't any in sight just now, but there must be some--many--in decent weather.”
”How--signal?”
He looked round, shaking a dubious head. ”Of course there's nothing like a flagpole here--but me, and I'm not quite long enough. Perhaps I can find something to serve as well. We might nail a plank to the corner of the roof and a table-cloth to that, I suppose.”
”And build fires, by night?”
He nodded. ”Best suggestion yet. I'll do that very thing to-night--after I've had a bite to eat.”
She started impatiently away. ”Oh, come, come! What am I thinking of, to let you stand there, starving by inches?”
They entered the house by the back door, finding themselves in the kitchen--that mean and commonplace a.s.sembly-room of narrow and pinched lives. The immaculate cleanliness of decent, close poverty lay over it all like a blight. And despite the warmth of the air outside, within it was chill--bleak with an aura of discontent bred of the incessant struggle against crus.h.i.+ng odds which went on within those walls from year's end to year's end....
Whitaker busied himself immediately with the stove. There was a full wood-box near by; and within a very few minutes he had a brisk fire going. The woman had disappeared in the direction of the barn. She returned in good time with half a dozen eggs. Foraging in the pantry and cupboards, she brought to light a quant.i.ty of supplies: a side of bacon, flour, potatoes, sugar, tea, small stores of edibles in tins.
”I'm hungry again, myself,” she declared, attacking the problem of simple cookery with a will and a confident air that promised much.
The aroma of frying bacon, the steam of brewing tea, were all but intolerable to an empty stomach. Whitaker left the kitchen hurriedly and, in an endeavour to control himself, made a round of the other rooms. There were two others on the ground floor: a ”parlour,” a bedroom; in the upper story, four small bedchambers; above them an attic, gloomy and echoing. Nowhere did he discover anything to moderate the impression made by the kitchen: it was all impeccably neat, desperately bare.
Depressed, he turned toward the head of the stairs. Below a door whined on its hinges, and the woman called him, her voice ringing through the hallway with an effect of richness, deep-toned and bell-true, that somehow made him think of sunlight flinging an arm of gold athwart the dusk of a darkened room. He felt his being thrill responsive to it, as fine gla.s.s sings its answer to the note truly pitched. More than all this, he was staggered by something in the quality of that full-throated cry, something that smote his memory until it was quick and vibrant, like a harp swept by an old familiar hand.
”Hugh?” she called; and again: ”Hugh! Where are you?”
He paused, grasping the bal.u.s.trade, and with some difficulty managed to articulate:
”Here ... coming....”
”Hurry. Everything's ready.”
Waiting an instant to steady his nerves, he descended and reentered the kitchen.
The meal was waiting--on the table. The woman, too, faced him as he entered, waiting in the chair nearest the stove. But, once within the room, he paused so long beside the door, his hand upon the k.n.o.b, and stared so strangely at her, that she moved uneasily, grew restless and disturbed. A gleam of apprehension flickered in her eyes.
”Why, what's the matter?” she asked with forced lightness. ”Why don't you come in and sit down?”