[Pg 270]The timbers of the ship which was to carry the fortunes of our hero were laid by the side of Middle Bay, and all these romantic shores could hardly present a lovelier scene. This beautiful sheet of water separates Harpswell from a portion of Brunswick. Its shores are rocky and pine-crowned, and display the most picturesque1 variety of outline. Eagle Island, Shelter Island, and one or two smaller ones, lie on the glassy surface like soft clouds of green foliage2 pierced through by the steel-blue tops of arrowy pine-trees.
There were a goodly number of shareholders3 in the projected vessel4; some among the most substantial men in the vicinity. Zephaniah Pennel had invested there quite a solid sum, as had also our friend Captain Kittridge. Moses had placed therein the proceeds of his recent voyage, which enabled him to buy a certain number of shares, and he secretly revolved5 in his mind whether the sum of money left by his father might not enable him to buy the whole ship. Then a few prosperous voyages, and his fortune was made!
He went into the business of building the new vessel with all the enthusiasm with which he used, when a boy, to plan ships and mould anchors. Every day he was off at early dawn in his working-clothes, and labored6 steadily7 among the men till evening. No matter how early he rose, however, he always found that a good fairy had been before him and prepared his dinner, daintily sometimes adding[Pg 271] thereto a fragrant8 little bunch of flowers. But when his boat returned home at evening, he no longer saw her as in the days of girlhood waiting far out on the farthest point of rock for his return. Not that she did not watch for it and run out many times toward sunset; but the moment she had made out that it was surely he, she would run back into the house, and very likely find an errand in her own room, where she would be so deeply engaged that it would be necessary for him to call her down before she could make her appearance. Then she came smiling, chatty, always gracious, and ready to go or to come as he requested,—the very cheerfulest of household fairies,—but yet for all that there was a cobweb invisible barrier around her that for some reason or other he could not break over. It vexed9 and perplexed10 him, and day after day he determined11 to whistle it down,—ride over it rough-shod,—and be as free as he chose with this apparently12 soft, unresistant, airy being, who seemed so accessible. Why shouldn't he kiss her when he chose, and sit with his arm around her waist, and draw her familiarly upon his knee,—this little child-woman, who was as a sister to him? Why, to be sure? Had she ever frowned or scolded as Sally Kittridge did when he attempted to pass the air-line that divides man from womanhood? Not at all. She had neither blushed nor laughed, nor ran away. If he kissed her, she took it with the most matter-of-fact composure; if he passed his arm around her, she let it remain with unmoved calmness; and so somehow he did these things less and less, and wondered why.
The fact is, our hero had begun an experiment with his little friend that we would never advise a young man to try on one of these intense, quiet, soft-seeming women, whose whole life is inward. He had determined to find out whether she loved him before he committed himself to her; and the strength of a whole book of martyrs13 is in[Pg 272] women to endure and to bear without flinching14 before they will surrender the gate of this citadel15 of silence. Moreover, our hero had begun his siege with precisely16 the worst weapons.
For on the night that he returned and found Mara conversing17 with a stranger, the suspicion arose in his mind that somehow Mara might be particularly interested in him, and instead of asking her, which anybody might consider the most feasible step in the case, he asked Sally Kittridge.
Sally's inborn18, inherent love of teasing was up in a moment. Did she know anything of that Mr. Adams? Of course she did,—a young lawyer of one of the best Boston families,—a splendid fellow; she wished any such luck might happen to her! Was Mara engaged to him? What would he give to know? Why didn't he ask Mara? Did he expect her to reveal her friend's secrets? Well, she shouldn't,—report said Mr. Adams was well-to-do in the world, and had expectations from an uncle,—and didn't Moses think he was interesting in conversation? Everybody said what a conquest it was for an Orr's Island girl, etc., etc. And Sally said the rest with many a malicious19 toss and wink20 and sly twinkle of the dimples of her cheek, which might mean more or less, as a young man of imaginative temperament21 was disposed to view it. Now this was all done in pure simple love of teasing. We incline to think phrenologists have as yet been very incomplete in their classification of faculties22, or they would have appointed a separate organ for this propensity23 of human nature. Certain persons, often the most kind-hearted in the world, and who would not give pain in any serious matter, seem to have an insatiable appetite for those small annoyances24 we commonly denominate teasing,—and Sally was one of this number.
She diverted herself infinitely25 in playing upon the excitability of Moses,—in awaking his curiosity, and baffling[Pg 273] it, and tormenting26 him with a whole phantasmagoria of suggestions and assertions, which played along so near the line of probability, that one could never tell which might be fancy and which might be fact.
Moses therefore pursued the line of tactics for such cases made and provided, and strove to awaken27 jealousy28 in Mara by paying marked and violent attentions to Sally. He went there evening after evening, leaving Mara to sit alone at home. He made secrets with her, and alluded29 to them before Mara. He proposed calling his new vessel the Sally Kittridge; but whether all these things made Mara jealous or not, he could never determine. Mara had no peculiar30 gift for acting31, except in this one point; but here all the vitality32 of nature rallied to her support, and enabled her to preserve an air of the most unperceiving serenity33. If she shed any tears when she spent a long, lonesome evening, she was quite particular to be looking in a very placid34 frame when Moses returned, and to give such an account of the books, or the work, or paintings which had interested her, that Moses was sure to be vexed. Never were her inquiries35 for Sally more cordial,—never did she seem inspired by a more ardent36 affection for her.
Whatever may have been the result of this state of things in regard to Mara, it is certain that Moses succeeded in convincing the common fame of that district that he and Sally were destined37 for each other, and the thing was regularly discussed at quilting frolics and tea-drinkings around, much to Miss Emily's disgust and Aunt Roxy's grave satisfaction, who declared that "Mara was altogether too good for Moses Pennel, but Sally Kittridge would make him stand round,"—by which expression she was understood to intimate that Sally had in her the rudiments38 of the same kind of domestic discipline which had operated so favorably in the case of Captain Kittridge.
These things, of course, had come to Mara's ears. She[Pg 274] had overheard the discussions on Sunday noons as the people between meetings sat over their doughnuts and cheese, and analyzed39 their neighbors' affairs, and she seemed to smile at them all. Sally only laughed, and declared that it was no such thing; that she would no more marry Moses Pennel, or any other fellow, than she would put her head into the fire. What did she want of any of them? She knew too much to get married,—that she did. She was going to have her liberty for one while yet to come, etc., etc.; but all these assertions were of course supposed to mean nothing but the usual declarations in such cases. Mara among the rest thought it quite likely that this thing was yet to be.
So she struggled and tried to reason down a pain which constantly ached in her heart when she thought of this. She ought to have foreseen that it must some time end in this way. Of course she must have known that Moses would some time choose a wife; and how fortunate that, instead of a stranger, he had chosen her most intimate friend. Sally was careless and thoughtless, to be sure, but she had a good generous heart at the bottom, and she hoped she would love Moses at least as well as she did, and then she would always live with them, and think of any little things that Sally might forget.
After all, Sally was so much more capable and efficient a person than herself,—so much more bustling41 and energetic, she would make altogether a better housekeeper42, and doubtless a better wife for Moses. But then it was so hard that he did not tell her about it. Was she not his sister?—his confidant for all his childhood?—and why should he shut up his heart from her now? But then she must guard herself from being jealous,—that would be mean and wicked. So Mara, in her zeal43 of self-discipline, pushed on matters; invited Sally to tea to meet Moses; and when she came, left them alone together while she busied herself[Pg 275] in hospitable44 cares. She sent Moses with errands and commissions to Sally, which he was sure to improve into protracted45 visits; and in short, no young match-maker ever showed more good-will to forward the union of two chosen friends than Mara showed to unite Moses and Sally.
So the flirtation46 went on all summer, like a ship under full sail, with prosperous breezes; and Mara, in the many hours that her two best friends were together, tried heroically to persuade herself that she was not unhappy. She said to herself constantly that she never had loved Moses other than as a brother, and repeated and dwelt upon the fact to her own mind with a pertinacity47 which might have led her to suspect the reality of the fact, had she had experience enough to look closer. True, it was rather lonely, she said, but that she was used to,—she always had been and always should be. Nobody would ever love her in return as she loved; which sentence she did not analyze40 very closely, or she might have remembered Mr. Adams and one or two others, who had professed48 more for her than she had found herself able to return. That general proposition about nobody is commonly found, if sifted49 to the bottom, to have specific relation to somebody whose name never appears in the record.
Nobody could have conjectured50 from Mara's calm, gentle cheerfulness of demeanor51, that any sorrow lay at the bottom of her heart; she would not have owned it to herself.
There are griefs which grow with years, which have no marked beginnings,—no especial dates; they are not events, but slow perceptions of disappointment, which bear down on the heart with a constant and equable pressure like the weight of the atmosphere, and these things are never named or counted in words among life's sorrows; yet through them, as through an unsuspected inward wound, life, energy, and vigor52 slowly bleed away, and the persons, never owning even to themselves the weight of[Pg 276] the pressure,—standing, to all appearance, fair and cheerful, are still undermined with a secret wear of this inner current, and ready to fall with the first external pressure.
There are persons often brought into near contact by the relations of life, and bound to each other by a love so close, that they are perfectly53 indispensable to each other, who yet act upon each other as a file upon a diamond, by a slow and gradual friction54, the pain of which is so equable, so constantly diffused55 through life, as scarcely ever at any time to force itself upon the mind as a reality.
Such had been the history of the affection of Mara for Moses. It had been a deep, inward, concentrated passion that had almost absorbed self-consciousness, and made her keenly alive to all the moody56, restless, passionate57 changes of his nature; it had brought with it that craving58 for sympathy and return which such love ever will, and yet it was fixed59 upon a nature so different and so uncomprehending that the action had for years been one of pain more than pleasure. Even now, when she had him at home with her and busied herself with constant cares for him, there was a sort of disturbing, unquiet element in the history of every day. The longing60 for him to come home at night,—the wish that he would stay with her,—the uncertainty61 whether he would or would not go and spend the evening with Sally,—the musing62 during the day over all that he had done and said the day before, were a constant interior excitement. For Moses, besides being in his moods quite variable and changeable, had also a good deal of the dramatic element in him, and put on sundry63 appearances in the way of experiment.
He would feign64 to have quarreled with Sally, that he might detect whether Mara would betray some gladness; but she only evinced concern and a desire to make up the difficulty. He would discuss her character and her fitness to make a man happy in matrimony in the style that young[Pg 277] gentlemen use who think their happiness a point of great consequence in the creation; and Mara, always cool, and firm, and sensible, would talk with him in the most maternal65 style possible, and caution him against trifling66 with her affections. Then again he would be lavish67 in his praise of Sally's beauty, vivacity68, and energy, and Mara would join with the most apparently unaffected delight. Sometimes he ventured, on the other side, to rally her on some future husband, and predict the days when all the attentions which she was daily bestowing69 on him would be for another; and here, as everywhere else, he found his little Sphinx perfectly inscrutable. Instinct teaches the grass-bird, who hides her eggs under long meadow grass, to creep timidly yards from the nest, and then fly up boldly in the wrong place; and a like instinct teaches shy girls all kinds of unconscious stratagems70 when the one secret of their life is approached. They may be as truthful71 in all other things as the strictest Puritan, but here they deceive by an infallible necessity. And meanwhile, where was Sally Kittridge in all this matter? Was her heart in the least touched by the black eyes and long lashes72? Who can say? Had she a heart? Well, Sally was a good girl. When one got sufficiently73 far down through the foam74 and froth of the surface to find what was in the depths of her nature, there was abundance there of good womanly feeling, generous and strong, if one could but get at it.
She was the best and brightest of daughters to the old Captain, whose accounts she kept, whose clothes she mended, whose dinner she often dressed and carried to him, from loving choice; and Mrs. Kittridge regarded her housewifely accomplishments75 with pride, though she never spoke76 to her otherwise than in words of criticism and rebuke77, as in her view an honest mother should who means to keep a flourishing sprig of a daughter within limits of a proper humility78.[Pg 278]
But as for any sentiment or love toward any person of the other sex, Sally, as yet, had it not. Her numerous admirers were only so many subjects for the exercise of her dear delight of teasing, and Moses Pennel, the last and most considerable, differed from the rest only in the fact that he was a match for her in this redoubtable79 art and science, and this made the game she was playing with him altogether more stimulating80 than that she had carried on with any other of her admirers. For Moses could sulk and storm for effect, and clear off as bright as Harpswell Bay after a thunder-storm—for effect also. Moses could play jealous, and make believe all those thousand-and-one shadowy nothings that coquettes, male and female, get up to carry their points with; and so their quarrels and their makings-up were as manifold as the sea-breezes that ruffled81 the ocean before the Captain's door.
There is but one danger in play of this kind, and that is, that deep down in the breast of every slippery, frothy, elfish Undine sleeps the germ of an unawakened soul, which suddenly, in the course of some such trafficking with the outward shows and seemings of affection, may wake up and make of the teasing, tricksy elf a sad and earnest woman—a creature of loves and self-denials and faithfulness unto death—in short, something altogether too good, too sacred to be trifled with; and when a man enters the game protected by a previous attachment82 which absorbs all his nature, and the woman awakes in all her depth and strength to feel the real meaning of love and life, she finds that she has played with one stronger than she, at a terrible disadvantage.
Is this mine lying dark and evil under the saucy83 little feet of our Sally? Well, we should not of course be surprised some day to find it so.
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1
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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3
shareholders
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| n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 ) | |
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4
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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revolved
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| v.（使）旋转( revolve的过去式和过去分词 )；细想 | |
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labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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9
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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10
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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13
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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14
flinching
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的现在分词 ) | |
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15
citadel
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| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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propensity
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| n.倾向；习性 | |
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annoyances
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| n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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tormenting
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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analyzed
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| v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析 | |
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analyze
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| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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41
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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45
protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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46
flirtation
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| n.调情，调戏，挑逗 | |
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pertinacity
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| n.执拗，顽固 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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49
sifted
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| v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
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conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
demeanor
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| n.行为；风度 | |
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52
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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53
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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54
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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55
diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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56
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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58
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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59
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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62
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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63
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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64
feign
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| vt.假装，佯作 | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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66
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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67
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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69
bestowing
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| 砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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70
stratagems
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| n.诡计，计谋( stratagem的名词复数 )；花招 | |
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truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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72
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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73
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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redoubtable
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| adj.可敬的；可怕的 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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81
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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saucy
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| adj.无礼的；俊俏的；活泼的 | |
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