Rainbow Cottage (11 page)

“Oh,” she said, “why—I thought it was Mr. Galbraith.” And then was annoyed with herself that she had spoken out her thought.

“And so it is,” said the stranger, laughing. “I’m Malcolm Galbraith from The Cliffs. But I don’t know who you are. You must have lately arrived.”

“It is Mr. Angus Galbraith whom I have met,” said Sheila, trying to be a bit more formal. Somehow she did not quite feel at her ease with this informal stranger.

“Oh, so you’ve met Angus, have you? He’s my cousin. We do look a little alike perhaps. Some people seem to think so. I believe the resemblance largely ceases at looks. But where in the world did you meet Angus?”

There was something so breezy and informal about this man’s questions that it seemed impossible to stand aloof; but Sheila was ill at ease. Her mother’s training had been most strict on that one point at least. Sheila was not to have anything to do with strange men. This man hadn’t been even introduced.

“He called at my grandmother’s last evening,” she answered gravely.

“Oh, he did!” said the young man, studying her mischievously. “Well, and how am I to know who your grandmother is?”

“My grandmother is Mrs. Ainslee of Rainbow Cottage,” said Sheila pleasantly with a little distancing lift of her chin, a little coolness in her voice.

“And
you
are?” persisted the young man.

“I am Miss Ainslee,” she answered simply.

The man laughed with a twinkle in his eyes. “No first name?” he asked winningly. “I told you mine, you know.”

“Oh,” said Sheila naively, “I have no cousin who looks like me!”

The young man stared and then laughed again, narrowing his merry eyes and watching her.

“No, I guess you’re right,” he said. “You haven’t a cousin that resembles you in the least, and I think I know them all.”

Sheila was a bit disconcerted. She realized she didn’t know those cousins herself, and perhaps she was being absurdly distant. If this man was a friend of Grandmother’s and knew all her cousins, why, of course she mustn’t be too formal.

“Oh, do you?” she said in a small voice. Then after an embarrassed pause, she said, “I must be going back. They will be looking for me.”

The young man wheeled and fell into step with her, studying her curiously as they walked along.

“I think I will go with you,
Miss
Ainslee, if you will permit it,” he said with emphasis on the “miss.” “If for nothing else than to learn your given name. We don’t use much formality in our life down here at the shore.”

Sheila wondered if she ought to let him go, yet he did not look like a young man who could be stopped very easily if she should attempt it. She felt more ill at ease than ever, for her life in the West, while in some ways exposed her to rough conditions, had been greatly sheltered by her mother’s fears. Yet this man was a gentleman in looks at least and seemed to be a friend of the family—why should she hesitate?

But the young man began to talk now, freely and pleasantly about the sandpipers, about the sea tide, and about the little white sails that curtseyed on the horizon. The mock merriment had disappeared from his manner. He had become grave and impersonal, and now she liked him better and began to wonder why she felt that instinctive drawing away from him.

When they reached the cottage, he swung back the gate with what seemed like an accustomed hand and took the initiative, walking in at the door as if he felt quite at home there.

Grandmother had just come downstairs, and Janet was tinkling the breakfast bell out of the dining-room window.

“Splendid!” cried the caller. “I haven’t had a bite to eat yet. Won’t you invite me to breakfast, Madam Ainslee?”

“Why of course,” said the old lady, “if you want to leave the nectar and ambrosia of your home on the cliff and accept our humble cottage fare, you are quite welcome. Janet, bring another plate and cup. The gods are going to breakfast with us this morning.”

“Ma’am?” said Janet perplexedly.

“Set another place!” said the mistress. Then turning to the self-invited guest, she said, “You’d better go to the telephone and call up your wife, Malcolm, or she will be wondering where you are.”

“Not she,” laughed the young man, pulling out Grandmother’s chair for her. “She won’t be awake for another hour or two, and when she is she’ll breakfast in bed. Don’t worry about her.”

Sheila’s face relaxed. The young man was married then. That was why he was so free and easy. Perhaps it was foolish of her to have been so standoffish.

She sat down at the table, relieved, and let herself enjoy the pleasant chatter between the guest and her grandmother. What delightful people these Galbraiths were. How nice he was to Grandmother. How merrily the little twinkles came around his eyes, how crisply his hair curled away from his forehead, how blue his eyes were. Not the same blue as her own and her mother’s—not Irish blue—but a warmer Scotch blue. There had been a Scotchman out at the Junction working for a few months. Sheila remembered her mother saying his eyes were Scotch blue and that hers and her mother’s were a colder Irish blue.

This was a golden young man like his cousin who had been with them the night before—golden-brown hair, a sunny look in his eyes, a golden look when he smiled. A bit older than his cousin Angus was he? Or no? Perhaps not. Sometimes he seemed even younger. But always that cheerful, blithe air about him.

For some reason she felt she liked his cousin best. But how silly. Of course she liked them both. They were Grandmother’s neighbors and friends. Why shouldn’t she like them? And why think about them anyway? She wondered what this one’s wife would be like, and would she be friendly as he was? Perhaps the Angus one was married, too. Who knew? Just a nice, friendly person. Perhaps his wife would come to see them and they would have pleasant times together. Sheila had never had nice times with anybody but her mother, and a sudden stab of pain came to think that she could never again talk things over with that beloved mother and ask her what she thought of these new friends and get her reactions to everything that happened. What, for instance, would Mother have thought of her informal meeting with that young married gentleman down on the sand? What had Grandmother thought of it? Perhaps Grandmother had thought she was one of those girls who were bold enough to scrape acquaintance with strange young men. Mother had talked a great deal about that. Whatever Grandmother thought, Sheila meant to stick to her mother’s standards.

Sheila studied her grandmother’s face all through the meal. She was cheerful and pleasant to the stranger, yet there was a spice of reserve in some of the things she said that the girl could not quite understand. A jovial line of banter went back and forth between them while Sheila sat quietly and watched.

Malcolm Galbraith had easily discovered Sheila’s first name and adopted it without ceremony, with the compromise of a prefix.

It was a sweet breakfast, with the breath of the sea and the breath of the flowers coming in at the window. Luscious melons in crushed ice, cereal cooked so perfectly that it seemed like ambrosia with rich yellow cream on it, amber coffee, an omelet light as fluff, and blueberry muffins, piping hot, tucked under their linen cover.

When the meal was concluded, the young man pulled back Grandmother’s chair and said with sweet deference, “Now, Grandma, may I have your lovely granddaughter for a little while? I want to show her all the charming spots along our shore. Miss Sheila, will you come along with me? I’m going to take you up to the cove. It’s the prettiest place around here, and you must get acquainted with it at once, for it’s a landmark.”

Sheila turned astonished eyes upon the questioner, but Grandmother spoke up quite firmly before Sheila could open her lips.

“No, young man. This is the Sabbath day, and seeing there’s no service to go to, Sheila and I are having one right here of our own. You’re welcome to stay to it if you like, but we can’t have any upsetting of our plans.”

The young man smiled indulgently and consulted his watch.

“How long will it last, Grandma? Ten minutes? Then could I take your little girl?”

“It will last till twelve o’clock,” said Grandmother firmly, looking at her tall grandfather clock by the chimney corner. “Time enough to see the cove when you can take Betty along!” Grandmother gave the young man a significant smile. “I want to have my girl to myself this first Sunday. But you’ll bring Betty down to see her, won’t you? I want her to know Betty.”

“Why, surely!” said young Galbraith most courteously. Then he gave a twinkle of his engaging eyes toward Sheila and bowed low.

“Good-bye, princess,” he said gravely. “I’ll be back someday when the war is over and the stars are more propitious.”

He bent low over Grandmother’s hand and kissed it and went away with a merry fling of his hand toward them both.

“He’s very pleasant but always absurd,” commented Grandmother with a quick glance at Sheila. “His wife is a nice girl. I sometimes think she is a little lonely. The Galbraiths have always been good neighbors. His father is an elder in our church at home, winters.”

“Grandmother, did I do right to let him walk back with me?” asked Sheila. “I didn’t know what to say. There seemed to be no stopping him. He came up behind me and spoke before I saw him at all. He talked about the little sandpipers as if we had known each other always. I thought he was his cousin at first.”

She gave a careful account of the encounter.

“He’s that way,” said Grandmother noncommittally. “Just keep your dignity and you’ll be all right. I sometimes think the children of this generation have lost all sense of dignity and sweet reserve. It looks as if your mother had managed to include some in you in spite of adverse surroundings. I’m afraid your cousins are some of them rather free in their companionships. It isn’t the way I should have brought them up, but then I didn’t have the upbringing of them so I have to take them as I find them.”

By this time Janet had cleared the breakfast table and came in silently and took her seat by the door, her neat white apron off and folded away in the kitchen. She sat demurely in her chair with her hands folded on her clean ink gingham lap, and her eyes drooped with now and then a furtive look of admiration at Sheila in the little rocker next to Grandmother’s big wing chair.

“Now, child,” said Grandmother sweetly, looking at Sheila, “you said you could sing, didn’t you?”

Sheila caught her breath, and her cheeks grew pink. “A little,” she said.

“Well, there’s a hymnbook on that little stand by your side. Pick out a hymn and sing it. Janet and I’ll hum along with you as well as we can.”

Sheila took the book and began to turn over the pages uncertainly. It was a book she had never seen before, but presently she found a familiar song.

“This is one of Mother’s songs,” she said with a catch in her voice.

There was a little rustle of leaves while they all found the place, and then Sheila’s clear, sweet voice began to sing:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me
,

Let me hide myself in Thee—

Grandmother’s quavering notes trembled in a little on the second line, and Janet murmured out a faint alto at the third, but they were both listening to the pure, full voice that was leading them, and Grandmother’s heart quivered with a new thrill. This
was
a voice. She knew it. Grandmother had been to symphony concerts and heard some of the leading soloists of the world. She knew there was a quality here that few untrained voices possessed.

Furtively she watched the sweet face of the girl as she sang on through the verses so simply and unaffectedly.

When it was finished she spoke her satisfaction.

“That’s nice! Could your mother sing like that, child?”

“Oh, much, much better, Grandmother!” said the girl, trying to steady the tremble of her lips at the memory of her dear mother’s singing. “I do wish you could have heard her. She had lessons from some of the best European teachers, you know.”

Grandmother was silent an instant, seeing many things she had not sensed before, and then she said in a small, ashamed voice, “No, I didn’t know!”

Then after an instant, when Janet jumped up to take the bottles of milk from the milkman, she asked, “But since that was so, why did she stay in that lonely place? Why didn’t she come to someplace where her voice would have been worth more to her? Why didn’t she go to some big city?”

“Because Father wasn’t willing to leave,” said the girl, lifting troubled eyes to her grandmother, “and then after he went away because she was afraid if he came back he could not find us.”

“Poor little girls!” murmured Grandmother with a sob in her throat and a mist on her glasses. “Well, sing us another, dear!”

Sheila sang two more, and then the old lady bowed her head and quavered out a prayer.

“Father in heaven, we thank Thee that Thou has forgiven us when we are such misguided, foolish creatures, going our own blind way when we might look to Thee and be led. Forgive us again, and help us to be yielded to Thy will. Bless this house and help us to worship Thee pleasingly even though we cannot assemble with others in Thy house. Bless my dear new grandchild, and show us how to be useful to one another and to please Thee. May she find this a happy home. Bless Janet and show her how to do her part in the world wisely and well, and teach her to know Thee better. Bless all my dear children everywhere today. Keep us all in Thy way, for Jesus’ sake.”

Grandmother’s voice was very quavering as she finished her prayer, and there were tears on her cheeks.

“Now another song, child,” she said as she wiped the mist from her glasses.

So Sheila sang again, and then Grandmother opened her big-print Bible and read the thirty-fourth Psalm. After another song, she got out a tiny little booklet and asked Sheila to read it aloud.

It was a simple, clear direction of how to be saved, and Sheila had never heard anyone talk or write on that subject. It interested her greatly. She had never known much about being saved. If anyone had asked her before she read that booklet what she must do to be saved, she would have said, “Be good.”