Rainbow Cottage (21 page)

She was deadly weary. If she could only go to sleep and not know when the next wave came. If she only needn’t feel that choking sensation of drowning. She had never been around water very much. The little creek near the Junction House was the only body of water for miles around. A great body of water filled her with a fearful terror, now that the sun and the blue sky were gone.

It seemed very dark. The thunder was not so loud, and there was only a shiver of lightning now and then as if its strength had been nearly spent. The wildness of the clouds was passing over, too, but it meant nothing to her anymore. The cold and the terror and the weariness had her indomitable young spirit almost quenched.

It was nearly time for that last wave. She would be at Home forever. Christ had said it: “He that believeth,” and she believed. “He that…believeth…
hath
everlasting life, and
shall not
come into condemnation; but
is passed
from death unto life!” The little pink book that Grandmother had given to her on Sunday had explained all that. And she believed. Yes, she believed. It was all right.

There! There was the roar of the oncoming wave. This would end the agony. Was that a voice she heard high above? Was that an arm around her? What was that verse her mother used to say: “Underneath are the everlasting arms”? Ah, God must have sent an angel to help her through this last wave. He wouldn’t, of course, have come Himself, just to help a little lost girl all alone. But it was good to be held. Perhaps she was only dreaming or delirious, but there stood the wave towering up far above her. There seemed to be a light behind it. Perhaps that was the glory from heaven’s gate.

Now the wave was coming downward.

It fell with drenching drowning power, and the light went out as she went under gasping. This was the end!

W
hen Grandmother came up from the cellar where she had been inspecting a leaking water pipe, she looked around for Sheila and could not find her. Then she called Jacqueline but was answered after long waiting and several calls by a smothered “What is it?” from the yellow guest room.

“Do you know where Sheila is?” asked Grandmother.

By this time the door of the yellow room was open a crack, and a petulant voice answered, “Mercy no! How should I know where that little prodigy is? We don’t inhabit the same atmosphere.”

Grandmother went out into the garden and looked around everywhere, calling softly. There were not so many places in the garden to hide unless one stooped down behind the lilies or crept between the hollyhocks. And the garden wall or under the rose trellis. Grandmother looked in all these places but found no trace of Sheila.

“That’s strange,” she said to herself and went out the wicket gate and walked down beside the garden wall a few steps until she could look all up and down the beach, for she thought surely she must have gone to walk beside the sea.

But there was no one in sight up or down the beach. Grandmother peered each way and then hurried back into the house and looked the first floor over thoroughly again, even calling to Janet who was still down in the cellar wiping up the floor and placing buckets to catch the drip till the plumber came.

“No, ma’am, I ain’t seen her,” said Janet, “but I thought I heard her go up to her room when I come up that time ta get the mop.”

Grandmother mounted the stairs and tapped at Sheila’s closed door, but no answer came. Then she turned the knob and went in, but Sheila was not there. How strange! Where could the child be?

The closet door was open a crack, and a blue morning dress hung on the hook of the door. Grandmother stopped, startled. Wasn’t that the dress Sheila had worn to breakfast?

She swung the closet door open. Yes, it surely was. Why had she changed her dress so soon? She wouldn’t have put on her new bathing suit and gone into the water alone, would she? Perhaps she wanted to get used to it when no one was around. But that was not safe. She oughtn’t to have gone in the first time alone, when she was quite unused to an undertow and didn’t know how to swim.

Grandmother cast a hasty glance from the window but saw no one down by the waves. Mercy! Suppose she had gone down where the quicksand was and got out beyond her depth before she realized!

Grandmother hurried downstairs again and out the door, through the wicket gate and out upon the sand again, walking briskly down toward the water, not an easy walk for an old lady when she was excited.

Suddenly she realized how futile it was for her to go out there. What could she do if Sheila was in trouble? She would call Jacqueline. She was a fine swimmer, a regular fish in the water.

She hurried back and called Jacqueline.

That young woman appeared with her face covered with cold cream.

“I’m taking a facial,” she announced uncompromisingly. “I couldn’t think of going into the water now. Besides, I have a date later in the morning. I’m going horseback riding with Malcolm Galbraith.”

“With
Malcolm
!” said Grandmother in dismay. “Isn’t Betty going, too?”

“Mercy no, I hope not,” said Jacqueline. “She rides like a cow.”

“But he is a married man, Jacqueline. You shouldn’t go off riding with him.”

Jacqueline laughed a merry little trill.

“Oh, Aunt Myra! You are too quaint for words! Did they really stop for things like that when you were a girl?”

“Well, you’ll have to take your cousin Sheila with you, anyway,” said Grandmother with her head high and a dangerous look in her eyes. “I’ll telephone to the stables at the village for a horse for her.”

“Indeed, you’ll do nothing of the kind!” shouted Jacqueline. “I don’t want that little spitfire alone with me. If you try to send her, I’ll see that she has a mighty uncomfortable time of it.”

“Jacqueline, what have you been doing to your cousin? Where is she?” asked Grandmother in sudden new alarm. “Have you been rude to her?”

“Dear me!” said Jacqueline. “How should I know what was counted rude a century ago? If you mean is Sheila sore at me, yes, I surmise she is. The trouble with her is she wants all the attention herself and she resents my being here. She as much as told me she had first rights in Angus Galbraith. She’s a little cat, Aunt Myra, and you’ll find it out pretty soon.”

“Jacqueline, that is not true! Your cousin never said such a thing! What have you done with her?”

“I?” laughed Jacqueline, slapping another gob of cream on her face. “Far be it from me to try to do anything with her. If you mean where is she, I haven’t the slightest idea, and I certainly am not going out to comb the sea and find her. If she hasn’t enough sense to stay out of the water, let her drown. It’s not up to me!” And Jacqueline went into her room, slamming the door and turning the key noisily in the lock.

Grandmother regarded the shut door sternly for a moment and then swung around and went to the telephone, calling long distance and shortly getting her eldest son on the line.

“Maxwell, Jacqueline is up here and is making a lot of worry for me. I wish you would come up and do something about it. You always could manage her. If you don’t want to do it yourself, hunt up her father and make him do it. I’ve got my hands full, and something’s got to be done.”

“Jacqueline!” said the uncle, thoughtfully. “Why, I thought she was up in Canada or the mountains or somewhere.”

“She was, but she came down here to cultivate your friend from London.”

“Oh, so that’s how the land lies. Well, look here, Mother, what’s this I hear about another granddaughter of yours being up there? Is that so?”

“Certainly,” said Grandmother in her most imperial tone. “Your brother Andrew’s daughter, Sheila, is here. She came in answer to my invitation.”

“H’m! Well, that’s probably the matter with Jacqueline. She’s jealous, isn’t she? And I don’t know as I blame her, having to compete with a girl of that type!”

“What type did you say, Maxwell?” asked his mother severely.

“Well, you know better than I,” hedged the son uncomfortably. “Certainly she can’t be much, coming from stock like that and brought up in the wilderness.”

“Stock like what, Maxwell?”

“Why, really, Mother, you know yourself her mother was —”

“What
was
her mother, Maxwell? Did you ever take the trouble to find out?”

“All I know is what my renegade brother wrote about her. She sang in a saloon or something, didn’t she?”

“I think you had better come and find out, Maxwell,” said his mother in the tone in which she used to command him to come into the house when he had been swimming without permission. “All I have to say is that we have made a very grievous mistake in our judgment.”

“But, Mother, are you sure she isn’t putting something over on you?”

“That will be all that is necessary, Maxwell, along that line. Am I in the habit of having the wool pulled over my eyes?”

“But how do you know that this girl is my brother’s child? Perhaps she’s an imposter.”

“Are you coming up, Maxwell, or will I have to send for Jacqueline’s father?”

“Well, I’ll try to get up within the course of the week if possible. This is a bad time for me, Mother.”

“Yes, it’s a bad time for me, too, Maxwell. Good-bye.”

Grandmother hung up and looked at her wit’s end. She stood a moment looking into space. There wasn’t anybody on earth to whom she could turn for immediate help in the problem of the hour. She must look to heaven.

So Grandmother went into her own room, quietly locked the door on the world, and knelt down by her bedside, laying her troubles before the Lord.

A few minutes later she came forth from her interview with the Most High God with a less troubled brow, and in her eyes was peace.

She walked straight to Sheila’s room and began a thorough inspection. Carefully she went over every dress in Sheila’s closet, trying to determine what the girl had on. The bathing suit was the first anxiety, but she found it at once, flying its bright colors on a hanger where the eye could not fail to see it at first glance. It was smooth and new and had not yet been wet. That settled the worry about the ocean.

“My Father, I thank Thee!” murmured Grandmother with a sigh of relief.

Then she went over the dresses, both those hanging up in the closet and those that were still folded away in the trunk. As far as she could see, there was not one missing. She sat down in the little rocking chair and tried to think over the things they had bought in Boston, but not one seemed to be missing of the lot. What could Sheila have on? How very strange it was. Of course, it must be something that she had forgotten.

She got up and went toward the window to see if she was yet in sight, for the clock hands pointed to twelve now. It was very strange that she had not yet returned. Could it be that Jacqueline had played some joke and had her imprisoned in a closet somewhere? If that should turn out to be the case, certainly something serious ought to be done about it. That girl was the limit.

Grandmother walked firmly over toward the window almost confident that she was going to see Sheila coming down the beach. Probably she had been off exploring by herself. Probably Jacqueline had hurt her feelings and she had gone away awhile to get calm, but she would know by the height of the sun that it was almost lunchtime. Surely she would soon be back.

But the sea glowed brightly in the summer sunshine, and no Sheila nor anybody else came walking down the beach.

Grandmother wondered about the horseback ride. More time had elapsed than she had realized while she looked over the new dresses and folded them back in their places. Had Jacqueline gone in spite of what she had said? Oh, how mistaken her poor sister had been to bring up the naughty beauty to have her own way so completely! She must go and find her at once. And perhaps Sheila had come in by this time, quietly, and would be downstairs reading. How the child loved books! How wonderful that she should have had that taste, out there in the wilds! It had, of course, made all the difference in the world in her manners.

But as Grandmother passed the bureau on her way back to the door, her eye was caught by a written paper standing up against the pincushion, and her heart contracted anxiously. What was this?

She took the paper in fingers that began to tremble, for she really was getting old, and there had been a great deal of unusual excitement the last few days. It seemed almost more than she could bear if there was to be more of it.

She sat down weakly in the rocking chair and, with the tears coursing down her cheeks, read the letter twice over, and then she put her face down into the scribbled note and cried outright.

With the letter still in her hand, she knelt again and brought her trouble to God. Then after a few minutes, she arose and went down to the telephone in the living room.

Nobody was around. Janet could be heard ironing in the kitchen, singing in nasal twang at the top of her lungs, “To the old rugged cross, I will ever be true.”

There were no sounds of footsteps up in the yellow room. Probably Jacqueline had gone out horseback riding in spite of what she had said. The coast was clear, with no listeners. She did not want even Janet listening to her conversation, so she took the telephone into the tiny hall closet and began.

She first called up the station in the village and got the station agent. There was one morning train at half past ten. Sheila would have had time to catch that if she had walked fast.

“Is that Mr. Cather? Well, this is Mrs. Ainslee, Mr. Cather. I am calling up to know whether my granddaughter reached there in time to catch the morning train. Yes, she was walking. You say she did not? You are
sure
? Well, thank you. No, she probably will have turned back if she discovered how late she was. No, I don’t suppose she will wait for the afternoon train, it would be so late; but of course, if you see her, will you kindly tell her to call me up before she gets on the train? Thank you.”

Grandmother was trembling from head to foot when she hung up the receiver and tried to steady her lips and her hands.

She pressed her cold fingers on her closed eyes and took a deep breath before she began again. She tried to keep the tremble out of her voice as she called up The Cliffs.