Miss Martin

“ Later, when Martin returned from seeing the visitor back to Lancaster, his parents were sitting alone on the porch.
“Well, Mother, Dad, what do you think of her?” he asked in his boyish eagerness to have their opinion of the girl he thought he was beginning to care for. “Isn’t she nice?”
“Seems like a very nice girl,” said his mother with measured enthusiasm.
“Oh, Mother,” was the boy’s impatient answer, “of course you wouldn’t think any girl was good enough for your boy! I can see that. If an angel from heaven came down after me you’d find flaws in her.” ”

“ Martin, not believing that she could turn off so suddenly at a complete tangent, spoke to her once or twice but got no other answer than a long, contented sigh. He stood for a little while trying to make out her outline in the dim corner of the room. Then he tiptoed out to the hall, possessed himself of a warm motor-rug, returned with it and laid it gently and tenderly over the unconscious girl. ”

“ The silent voices of the stars sang their nightly anthem. The earth was white with magic moonshine. Joan looked out. The old creeper down which she had climbed to go to Martin that night which seemed so far away was all in leaf. With what exhilaration she had dropped her bag out. Had ever a girl been so utterly careless of consequences then as she? How wonderfully and splendidly Martinish Martin had been when she plunged in upon him, and how jolly and homelike the hall of his house—her house—had seemed to be. ”

“ Then, Martin suddenly discovered that his ideal was neither a rosy Daughter of the Dawn, nor a tragic Queen of the Night—she was a merry-faced, neutral-tinted Sister of the Afternoon, a girl with brown hair, so dark as to be black by night, and big brown eyes. A girl with a rich contralto voice that commanded or cajoled in a most distracting fashion. A girl who commanded respect by her mastery of a masculine profession, yet who thereby sacrificed none of her appealing femininity. A girl named Ruth LeMoyne. ”

“ Remember, Miss Martin, that I was but a child at this time—at least, I was little more than fourteen—but in another year I was a woman, in all the consciousness of certain attractions, clever enough to know that I could read and detect the weak points in others, and weak enough to fancy that I could always take advantage of them. This incessant spirit of casuistry, this passion for investigating the temper of those about you, and making a study of their natures for purposes of your own, is the essence of a convent life ”

“ But Martin's mother answered boldly: "If the King will only listen patiently to me and give me a straightforward answer, he will see that I am not out of my mind. You, O King, have a lovely daughter to give in marriage. I have a son—a wooer—as clever a youth and as good a son-in-law as you will find in your whole kingdom. There is nothing that he cannot do. ”

“ I should be wretched at the idea of engaging your attention at such a moment,” said Mary, with a carelessness that contrasted strongly with her words; while she added, with earnestness, “Besides, I 'm not sure I could spare the time.”
“You see, sir,” said her Ladyship to the artist, “you have to deal with a young lady whose occupations are like those of a Premier. The Duke of Wellington can vouchsafe a sitting for his portrait, but Miss Martin cannot spare the time for it.” ”

“ And how is your father's gardener then to get his living?"
"Don't bother us," drawled out the new king; "we don't like flowers, nor do we care whether you get a living or not!"
[Pg 370] The blood rushed to Martin's head, and a singing sound filled his ears. "A pond!" he cried. "A common fishpond! And how am I to earn my living now? And what is to become of my wife and little Lionel?"
In his anger and despair, Martin sprang blindly forward, and kicked the standard roses, and wrung the necks of the beautiful purple iris that bloomed in the shade of some laurel bushes. ”

“ Ruth said a moment later.
Martin could have blessed her, though he said:-
"I don't know. I guess it's all a matter of personal taste, but she doesn't strike me as being particularly pretty."
"Why, there isn't one woman in ten thousand with features as regular as hers. They are splendid. Her face is as clear-cut as a cameo. And her eyes are beautiful."
"Do you think so?" Martin queried absently, for to him there was only one beautiful woman in the world, and she was beside him, her hand upon his arm. ”

“ Martin, he goes in to see her at Lancaster real often and he’s all the time talkin’ about her and wantin’ we should meet her. She has him to supper--ach, they call it dinner--but it’s what they eat in the evening. I just said to his pop we’ll ask her out here to see us once and find out what for girl she is. From what Martin says she’s a little tony and got money and lots of fine things. You know Martin is the kind can suit himself to most any kind of people. He can make after every place he goes, even if they do put on style. So mebbe she thinks Martin’s from tony people, too. ”

“ Did you observe that?”
“I thought that they assumed a degree of familiarity with Miss Martin which was scarcely consistent with their station.”
“Say highly ridiculous, child,—perfectly preposterous; for although she will persist in a style of living very opposite to the requirements of her position, she is Miss Martin, and my niece!”
There was now a dead pause of some seconds. At length her Ladyship spoke:—
“To have been beaten in one's own town, where we own every stick and stone in the place, really requires some explanation ”

“ The sparkling sea, with the tang of salt water wafted up over his fields; the rippling stream, winding like a thread of gold down to the Bay of Fundy; his cozy home peeping from its orchard nest, and Mary at the doorway, singing their baby's lullaby; Martin's gay voice passing down the road; and in the purpling woods the tender song of the hermit thrush:
"O hear all! O hear all! O holy, holy!"
A wave of desperate longing for the old days swept over him; a very passion of loneliness and homesickness shook his desolate soul.
Why should he struggle against it? he asked himself. ”

“ The sea will not comfort you in that way; it will clasp you to a cold, cold breast, and kiss you with bitter salt lips, and carry you down where it is always dark, where you will never never see the blue sky and sunshine and flowers again."
Martin shivered and nestled closer to her; and then while the shadows of evening were gathering round them, she sat rocking herself to and fro on a stone, murmuring many tender, sweet words to him, until the music of her voice and the warmth of her bosom made him sleep. ”

“ Her love and eager desire to win him had flushed her clear olive skin with rich red colour; out of her sweet red lips, half parted, came her warm breath on his cheek, more fragrant than wild flowers; and her large dark eyes were gazing down into his with such a tenderness in them that Martin, seeing it, felt a strange little shudder pass through him, and scarcely knew whether to think it pleasant or painful. "Dear child, I love you so much," she spoke, "will you not call me mother?" ”

“ You know, I believe you! It’s all some infernal mistake or plot. You’re not a clever enough actor to feign such distress and innocence. Go out and get some air and come back to-morrow morning. I’ll stand for you in the meantime. I believe in you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Martin managed to blurt out between dry lips that seemed almost paralyzed. “I’ll be back in the morning. Hope you’ll find I’m telling the truth.”
He walked as a somnambulist down the street. In his misery he thought of Isabel Souders. He would go to her for comfort. She’d understand and believe in him! ”

“ Is Miss Martin fully aware of his state?”
“Who can tell? We scarcely ever see her. You know that she never was very partial to your father, and latterly there has been a greater distance than ever between them. They differ about everything; and with that independent way he has—”
A wide stare from Kate's full dark eyes, an expression of astonishment, mingled with raillery, in her features, here arrested the speaker, who blushed deeply in her embarrassment. ”

“ Every day Martin grew more familiar with the sea, and loved it more, and it was his companion and playmate. He was bolder than the little restless sanderlings that ran and flitted before the advancing waves, and so never got their pretty white and grey plumage wet: often he would turn to meet the coming wave, and let it break round and rush past him, and then in a moment he would be standing knee-deep in the midst of a great sheet of dazzling white foam, until with a long hiss as it fled back, drawing the round pebbles with it, it would be gone, and he would laugh and shout with glee. ”

“ Nay, good wife, when thou hast thought it over, thou wilt see that far fouler shoals and straits lie up yonder, than in the free open sea that God Almighty made. Martin is a devout and godly man, who hath matins and evensong on board each day when the weather is not too foul, and looks well that there be no ill-doings in his ship; and if he have a berth for thy lad, it will be a better school for him than where two-thirds of the household are raging against one another, and the third ever striving to corrupt and outwit the rest. ”

“ The prima donna whose place it now was, as the forsaken princess, lost in the forest, to happen upon the band of sleeping fairies, waited at her entrance, watching the child as, catching and spreading her fan-like skirts of gauze, she bent, swayed, flitted to and fro, her eyes big and earnest with intentness to duty, her yellow hair flying, all unconscious, in the fierce glare of the colored lights, of the sea of faces in the house before her.
With a sudden flash of intuition Norma Bonkowski flew to the manager. "Stop the music, make them stop," she begged. ”

“ Martin shivered at the sound of Sails' dismal croaking. See the night! He could see nothing. The other's voice came out of an impenetrable void. Above him, beneath him, all about him, was nothing but blackness, thick, clinging gloom. The Stygian, fog-filled night crushed, like a heavy, intangible weight; one choked for breath.
Martin felt like an atom lost in back immensity. He wanted to shout at the top of his voice. But what he did do was lift his voice gently, so the words would not arouse the sleepers in the cabin.
"Little Billy! Billy!" he called. ”

“ He enjoyed his work at the bank, where his cordiality and adeptness, his alert, receptive mind, were laying for him a strong foundation for a successful career.
He called often at the home of Isabel Souders, listened to her playing, made one in an occasional game of cards, escorted her to musicals and dramas. He played and talked and laughed with her, but he soon discovered that he could not interest her in any serious matter. At the mention of his work, beyond the merest superficialities, she lifted her hands and said in laughing tones, “Please, Martin, don’t talk shop! Father never does. ”

“ That Ruth had little faith in his power as a writer, did not alter her nor diminish her in Martin’s eyes. In the breathing spell of the vacation he had taken, he had spent many hours in self-analysis, and thereby learned much of himself. He had discovered that he loved beauty more than fame, and that what desire he had for fame was largely for Ruth’s sake. It was for this reason that his desire for fame was strong. He wanted to be great in the world’s eyes; “to make good,” as he expressed it, in order that the woman he loved should be proud of him and deem him worthy. ”

“ He motored over in the afternoon to the house on the other side of Sussex where he was to find Joan. He drove her away with him, and as they came to the top of a little crest in the flat country, Martin stopped the car and looked about him.
"I never cease to be surprised by the beauty of this country when I come home to it." ”

“ Where was he, and where was that girl with the white face and the red lips and the hair that came out of a bottle?
The old overwhelming desire to see Martin again had been unconsciously set blazing by this tactless and provoked man. It was so passionate and irresistible that she could hardly remain at the table until the replete Cornucopia rose, rattling with beads. And when, after what seemed to be an interminable time, this happened and the party adjourned to the shaded veranda to smoke and catch the faint breeze from the sea, she instantly beckoned to Harry and made for the drawing-room. ”

“ She returned his love! The love he had seen lighting her eyes, but which he could never force her to acknowledge by words, she had unmistakably admitted by action. In that black moment in the cabin, she had bared her heart to him—bared it fearlessly before all that hostile, leering company. His love was returned. Ruth loved him!
Such was the origin of the exultant thrills that shot brightly through Martin's despair. But the triumphant thought was momentary. Love could not brighten their lot; nay, love but made more numerous the grim host of cruel fears that pressed upon him. Ruth—God! ”

“ He is greatly puzzled what course to adopt; and when I suggested the propriety of invoking Miss Martin's aid, told me that this is out of the question, since she is on a sick-bed. While we were speaking, a Dublin physician passed through on his way to visit her. This really does add to the complication, for she is, perhaps, the only one who could exert a great influence over the excited populace. In any other country it might read strangely, that it was to a young lady men should have recourse in a moment of such peril ”