CHAPTER 2

Asaph’s mighty secret would have been less easy to guard had Althea Morton been staying at Belleport, for gossip travels quickly in a small Cape Cod village and before a day had elapsed all the town would have been cognizant of the romance. As it was his pilgrimages to Wilton had to be explained.

“I’m negotiatin’ with Zenas Henry about some wood,” announced he in offhand fashion at the post-office, and forthwith the excuse sped about the hamlet and further speculation was silenced.

But to satisfy Lemuel Gill’s curiosity was not such a simple matter. Friendship granted him the privilege of asking questions, any number of them, and no snub or subtle display of reticence discouraged him in the least.

“Goin’ over to Zenas Henry’s about that load of wood again?” queried he. “But you’ve been to the Brewsters’ about that blamed wood twice already. What you goin’ a third time for?”

The sharp little eyes bored like gimlets through his colleague. Nevertheless there was nothing offensive in Lemuel’s gaze. He was interested, that was all, and the inquisitiveness he now manifested was no greater than that in which he had habitually indulged for the past quarter of a century. Under other circumstances Asaph would scarce have noticed it or would even have welcomed the interrogations, cheerfully replying to them with a good-humored grin and a statement as to his exact reason for making another journey to the adjoining village. Furthermore he would, in all probability, have urged Lemuel to accompany him.

But today he did none of these things.

Instead he flushed irritably and tried to shift the conversation into another channel.

“So I have,” he murmured. “Still, you can’t get nothin’ in this world without takin’ some trouble about it.”

“But a load of wood,—” pressed Lemuel. “Why ’tain’t worth goin’ eight miles for once, let alone travellin’ the distance three times. You’ll double its cost in wear to your wagon.”

“Mebbe. Still the ride’s a pleasant one an’—”

“Oh, if you’re just goin’ a-ridin’!” sniffed the inquisitor. “But with the work you’ve got laid out—cultivatin’, weedin’ an’ the like, I didn’t look for you to go ridin’ out. You said yesterday you figgered on sprayin’ your roses this mornin’.”

“So I did! So I did,” hedged Asaph.

“You certainly don’t expect to do it when you get back; ’twill be near noon.”

“Likely I may not be gone that long an’ if I am I can do my sprayin’ tomorrow.”

“You told me I could use the sprayer tomorrow,” came from Lemmy in an aggrieved tone.

“You can an’ welcome.”

“But I’ve no notion of borrowin’ it when you’re plannin’ to use it yourself.”

“I can wait. It don’t matter a mite when I do my roses.”

Through wide-open blue eyes Lemuel Gill scanned his friend’s countenance.

“Why, Asaph Holmes, you were declarin’ not three days ago that every one of them roses in that front bed bid fair to be et up by aphids unless you got after ’em straight away.”

In sickly fashion Asaph grinned.

“I reckon I was sorter het up when I made that statement, Lemmy.”

“Still, there’s aphids on your Dorothy Perkins’s. I saw ’em myself.”

“I’m goin’ to tend to ’em.”

“When?”

“Late this afternoon, mebbe.”

“’Tain’t good to spray roses toward nightfall. You read that to me out of one of your clippin’s once and cautioned me against doin’ it.”

“Did I? I’ve got so many of them confounded clippin’s I can’t for the life of me remember what half of ’em say.”

The jauntiness of the tone more than the words that accompanied it caught Lemuel’s attention, and spreading his legs far apart, he riveted his eyes on his comrade’s face.

“Say, Asaph, what’s the matter with you anyway?” he demanded.

Here was Asaph Holmes’s golden opportunity! If he was ever going to impart to Lemmy Gill the great tidings of his contemplated change of plans, a natural opening now presented itself. In one sentence he could clear his conscience of the load that weighed it down. The secret trembled on the tip of his tongue. He glanced furtively at Lemmy.

Standing there in the sunshine, his eyes starry with curiosity and his sandy hair up-ended in the breeze, his crony’s short figure appeared ridiculously youthful—too youthful to be entrusted with such important intelligence. Moreover, Asaph remembered his artlessness, and how prone he was to prattle ingenuously to the first person he met any news that interested him. No, he dared not impart so fragile a tale as his love affair to Lemuel. Indeed, when all was said and done, what was it but a dream, a mad and beautiful imagining? Why, he had only seen Althea Morton twice! On the strength of those two short interviews it would be preposterous to assert he was going to marry her.

Therefore he fumbled with the button on his cuff and responded nonchalantly:

“Nothin’ in the world. Mebbe after all I had better put off the Wilton trip till afternoon an’ do my sprayin’ now.”

“You’d much better,” beamed Lemuel, wholly satisfied. “Delay goin’ till after dinner an’ I’ll flax round an’ go with you.”

“Oh, I’ll have to be leavin’ before that time,” Asaph hastened to protest. “I’ve got a peck of errands to do. Were I to wait till noon I wouldn’t get ’em done before nightfall.”

“What you goin’ to buy?” asked Lemmy, too much interested to let the rebuff he had received ruffle him.

“Collars, chicken-feed—lots of things.”

“Goin’ to get ’em at Wilton?”

“I may’s well, long’s I’m drivin’ through.”

“’Twill hurt Eben Snow’s feelin’s to have you go patronizin’ the Wilton store instead of his.”

“He won’t know nothin’ about it.”

“Oh, he’ll know all right. Everybody knows everything in this town. Folks read your inmost thoughts almost before you think ’em.”

At the words Asaph colored uncomfortably.

“Nobody’s goin’ to read my inmost thoughts,” he answered with a touch of humor. “Eb Snow ain’t goin’ to be the wiser for any shoppin’ I do unless you tell him.”

“I sha’n’t tell him nothin’. But he’ll know for all that. People will see you drivin’ home an’ spy the bags of grain in the wagon.”

“I can’t help it,” returned Asaph with a mild suggestion of impatience. “I’ve got the right to buy things where I please, ain’t I?”

“It’ll be nuts for Silas Nickerson to have you comin’ to Wilton to shop. He’ll make no end of talk about it. He’ll tell folks you couldn’t get no collars nor chicken-feed in Belleport an’ so had to tote over there for ’em. He’s always crackin’ up his town. I thought he’d never have done talkin’ when Bijah Sole picked a Wilton wife. Si said that evidently our place couldn’t boast a smart woman. But when Lyman Bearse up an’ answered that the trouble was the Belleport women were too smart to marry Bijah he kinder quit braggin’.”

Asaph, however, failed to echo the guffaw that concluded the story.

He had started precipitately for the house.

“I must get to sprayin’,” called he, “before the sun rises higher.”

As he disappeared into the shed he caught a glimpse of Lemmy jogging off down the lane, and to make sure no hard feeling existed between them he waved cordially to his comrade. Then as he bent to stir into a can a turquoise mixture of Bordeaux his brow wrinkled.

It was not pleasant to reflect that Silas Nickerson would probably make similar assertions with regard to his marriage. Still Belleport would be more ready to forgive him for wedding a Provincetown wife than if she were a native of Wilton. That was some comfort.

Feverishly he sprayed his roses, and by keeping a tight rein on his inclinations and not allowing himself to be led into hunting cut-worms, thinning out his poppies, which sorely needed it, or weeding his iris border, by eleven o’clock he was ready to set out for the adjoining town. As he stole off as quietly as he could in his wagon he felt guilty and selfish not to have delayed until afternoon and taken Lemmy with him. The little man had no horse and keenly enjoyed a drive.

“But I just can’t take him today,” replied he to his conscience. “Things are too ticklish. He might mess up everything. Some day I’ll make it up to him. He shall have three or four rides—half a dozen.”

Thus quieting the accusations that assailed him, he turned into the highway that edged the Belleport shore.

It was a day when to the very horizon the ocean was a dazzling reach of blue flecked into splendor by the gold of the sun and the snowy sails of scudding schooners. Little creeks that gave back the azure of the sky cut paths across the marshes, dredging channels for themselves amid swaying sedge, tough, salt, and vividly green. Inland in the bordering swamps azalea was just coming into bloom and purple flags stained to amethyst the dark pools of tide water. A vague satisfaction in this beauty mingled with Asaph’s reveries as he drove along. The sea, the ships, the tiny winding inlets were things he loved, things he would not have been parted from at any price and yet things he every day passed by with nothing more than a subconscious realization of their existence.

Today his mind was much more engrossed by the thought of Althea or even the collars and chicken-feed than by the glory of the world about him. Nevertheless, he could not have been oblivious to it for he drank in the cool breeze with pleasure and was dimly aware of the perfume of sun-dried pine and budding roses.

The riot of color had faded into dull mist when he returned, and Lemuel Gill was sitting on the front steps awaiting him.

“You’ve been an awful while,” called he in a tone of relief. “I was ’most afraid somethin’ had befell you.”

“Oh, no.”

“But you’ve been gone so long. I s’pose you ran afoul of Silas Nickerson an’ couldn’t make your escape. What a critter he is for wormin’ gossip out of folks! He’d keep a man in that store till doomsday pumpin’ him. Get your collars?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Don’t tell me Silas didn’t have the size! My eye! Sorry as I am you should be disappointed, I’m tickled to death he was out of ’em. Reckon he was peeved enough to have somebody from Belleport ketch him nappin’. He prides himself no end on never lettin’ his goods run out of stock. Wait till I tell Eben Snow there warn’t a sixteen collar in the place. He’ll be so pleased ’twill mor’n make up to him for your goin’ to Wilton to shop.”

As Lemuel rubbed his hands and smiled, a dull red flush rose to Asaph’s forehead.

“Silas warn’t out of collars fur’s I know.”

“What?”

“I didn’t ask for ’em.”

“O-h! Forgot ’em, eh?”

Receiving no answer he waited; then his face, clouded with ebbing triumph, brightened.

“But you got your chicken-feed,” ventured he.

“I didn’t get anything. I didn’t go near the Wilton post-office.”

“What on earth have you been doin’ till this time of night?”

“Visitin’ at Zenas Henry’s.”

“You mean to say you’ve been at Brewsters’ ever since eleven o’clock this mornin’?”

“I didn’t get there till close onto noon,” explained Asaph, a warning note of annoyance giving crispness to his embarrassment.

“An’ you’ve been hangin’ round there till now?”

The picture presented was so unflattering the lover flinched.

“I’ve been there, yes.”

“What doin’?”

“Talkin’.”

“Zenas Henry must have had an awful lot to say. What was the news?”

Lemmy drew closer, his eyes avid with interest.

“I warn’t talkin’ with him. He warn’t home.”

“Oh, the Three Captains were holdin’ forth, were they? Benjamin Todd’s a great gossip. He can spin a yarn out of most anythin’. I like to listen to him myself when he gets well a-goin’.”

There was no help for it. Asaph saw the truth must out.

“None of the Captains were home, neither. They’d gone fishin’.”

“Wal’, Abbie Brewster is an entertainin’ woman but I never knew of your spendin’ hours in her company before.”

“She warn’t there. She’d gone to Brockton.”

Mystified, Lemmy stroked his chin.

“Then who in tunket was you talkin’ to?” he burst out.

“A friend of Abbie’s who’s a-visitin’.”

“A woman?”

Asaph nodded.

Lemuel looked dazed.

“Seems to me I did hear down to the store the Brewsters had somebody stayin’ with ’em,” said he slowly. “But you certainly warn’t talkin’ to her from high noon till most supper time.”

“’Twarn’t really long when you come to think of it.”

“’Twas about five hours.”

“Mebbe.”

“’Twas all of that.” Lemuel appeared for a moment to be bereft of words. Then he added with a touch of malice: “She must ’a’ been almighty interestin’.”

“She was,” was the curt retort.

Something in its tartness, something in his friend’s flushed countenance and the sudden movement he made to bend and pull a blade of grass from the roadside caused Lemuel Gill to crumple up weakly against the picket fence.

“Lord!” he murmured.

“It ain’t goin’ to make a mite of difference twixt you an’ me, Lemmy,” his companion declared eagerly. “We’re goin’ on with our gardenin’ an’ all same’s before. Althea’s got to expect that. In fact as I figger it, I’m goin’ to have more time for diggin’ round an’ workin’ at my plants married than single. More leisure for readin’ too, I hope. Althea’s an awful nice woman, Lemmy. You’ll like her. You can’t help it. She’s a fine cook, too. I had a chance to sample some of her bakin’ this noon an’ ’twas good as any I ever ate. Take everything together seems to me I’m goin’ to be better off than I ever was in my life. If only you—” The onrush of his words was halted by sudden timidity.

“If I don’t mind, you mean?” Lemmy contrived to stammer. “Pshaw! ’Course I don’t. ’Most everybody marries—some of ’em two an’ three times. I’d be a great kind of a friend if I was to stand in the way of your bein’ happy. Don’t go worryin’ about me. Most likely I sha’n’t give the matter a second thought.”

For all his bluster, the bravado the little man tried to maintain weakened toward the final clause of his sentence and there was a quaver in the words.

A wave of self accusation swept over Asaph.

Only too well he realized his happiness had been purchased at a price—the price of Lemmy Gill’s.