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    Further Chronicles of Avonlea

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    came of a strange breed, as had been said

      disapprovingly when Luke Carewe married her. There was

      a strain of insanity in the Lincolns. A Lincoln woman

      had drowned herself once. Chester thought of the river,

      and grew sick with fright. For a moment even his

      passion for Damaris weakened before the older tie.

      "Mother, calm yourself. Oh, surely there's no need of

      all this! Let us wait until to-morrow, and talk it over

      then. I'll hear all you have to say. Come in, dear."

      Thyra loosened her arms from about him, and stepped

      back into a moon-lit space. Looking at him tragically,

      she extended her arms and spoke slowly and solemnly.

      "Chester, choose between us. If you choose her, I shall

      go from you to-night, and you will never see me again!"

      "Mother!"

      "Choose!" she reiterated, fiercely.

      He felt her long ascendancy. Its influence was not to

      be shaken off in a moment. In all his life he had never

      disobeyed her. Besides, with it all, he loved her more

      deeply and understandingly than most sons love their

      mothers. He realized that, since she would have it so,

      his choice was already made - or, rather that he had no

      choice.

      "Have your way," he said sullenly.

      She ran to him and caught him to her heart. In the

      reaction of her feeling she was half laughing, half

      crying. All was well again - all would be well; she

      never doubted this, for she knew he would keep his

      ungracious promise sacredly.

      "Oh, my son, my son," she murmured, "you'd have sent me

      to my death if you had chosen otherwise. But now you

      are mine again!"

      She did not heed that he was sullen - that he resented

      her unjustice with all her own intensity. She did not

      heed his silence as they went into the house together.

      Strangely enough, she slept well and soundly that

      night. Not until many days had passed did she

      understand that, though Chester might keep his promise

      in the letter, it was beyond his power to keep it in

      the spirit. She had taken him from Damaris Garland; but

      she had not won him back to herself. He could never be

      wholly her son again. There was a barrier between them

      which not all her passionate love could break down.

      Chester was gravely kind to her, for it was not in his

      nature to remain sullen long, or visit his own

      unhappiness upon another's head; besides, he understood

      her exacting affection, even in its injustice, and it

      has been well-said that to understand is to forgive.

      But he avoided her, and she knew it. The flame of her

      anger burned bitterly towards Damaris.

      "He thinks of her all the time," she moaned to herself.

      "He'll come to hate me yet, I fear, because it's I who

      made him give her up. But I'd rather even that than

      share him with another woman. Oh, my son, my son!"

      She knew that Damaris was suffering, too. The girl's

      wan face told that when she met her. But this pleased

      Thyra. It eased the ache in her bitter heart to know

      that pain was gnawing at Damaris' also.

      Chester was absent from home very often now. He spent

      much of his spare time at the harbor, consorting with

      Joe Raymond and others of that ilk, who were but sorry

      associates for him, Avonlea people thought.

      In late November he and Joe started for a trip down the

      coast in the latter's boat. Thyra protested against it,

      but Chester laughed at her alarm.

      Thyra saw him go with a heart sick from fear. She hated

      the sea, and was afraid of it at any time; but, most of

      all, in this treacherous month, with its sudden, wild

      gales.

      Chester had been fond of the sea from boyhood. She had

      always tried to stifle this fondness and break off his

      associations with the harbor fishermen, who liked to

      lure the high-spirited boy out with them on fishing

      expeditions. But her power over him was gone now.

      After Chester's departure she was restless and

      miserable, wandering from window to window to scan the

      dour, unsmiling sky. Carl White, dropping in to pay a

      call, was alarmed when he heard that Chester had gone

      with Joe, and had not tact enough to conceal his alarm

      from Thyra.

      "'T isn't safe this time of year," he said. "Folks

      expect no better from that reckless, harum-scarum Joe

      Raymond. He'll drown himself some day, there's nothing

      surer. This mad freak of starting off down the shore in

      November is just of a piece with his usual

      performances. But you shouldn't have let Chester go,

      Thyra."

      "I couldn't prevent him. Say what I could, he would go.

      He laughed when I spoke of danger. Oh, he's changed

      from what he was! I know who has wrought the change,

      and I hate her for it!"

      Carl shrugged his fat shoulders. He knew quite well

      that Thyra was at the bottom of the sudden coldness

      between Chester Carewe and Damaris Garland, about which

      Avonlea gossip was busying itself. He pitied Thyra,

      too. She had aged rapidly the past month.

      "You're too hard on Chester, Thyra. He's out of

      leading-strings now, or should be. You must just let me

      take an old friend's privilege, and tell you that

      you're taking the wrong way with him. You're too

      jealous and exacting, Thyra."

      "You don't know anything about it. You have never had a

      son," said Thyra, cruelly enough, for she knew that

      Carl's sonlessness was a rankling thorn in his mind.

      "You don't know what it is to pour out your love on one

      human being, and have it flung back in your face!"

      Carl could not cope with Thyra's moods. He had never

      understood her, even in his youth. Now he went home,

      still shrugging his shoulders, and thinking that it was

      a good thing Thyra had not looked on him with favor in

      the old days. Cynthia was much easier to get along

      with.

      More than Thyra looked anxiously to sea and sky that

      night in Avonlea. Damaris Garland listened to the

      smothered roar of the Atlantic in the murky northeast

      with a prescience of coming disaster. Friendly

      longshoremen shook their heads and said that Ches and

      Joe would better have kept to good, dry land.

      "It's sorry work joking with a November gale," said

      Abel Blair. He was an old man and, in his life, had

      seen some sad things along the shore.

      Thyra could not sleep that night. When the gale came

      shrieking up the river, and struck the house, she got

      out of bed and dressed herself. The wind screamed like

      a ravening beast at her window. All night she wandered

      to and fro in the house, going from room to room, now

      wringing her hands with loud outcries, now praying

      below her breath with white lips, now listening in dumb

      misery to the fury of the storm.

      The wind raged all the next day; but spent itself in

      the follo
    wing night, and the second morning was calm

      and fair. The eastern sky was a great arc of crystal,

      smitten through with auroral crimsonings. Thyra,

      looking from her kitchen window, saw a group of men on

      the bridge. They were talking to Carl White, with looks

      and gestures directed towards the Carewe house.

      She went out and down to them. None of these who saw

      her white, rigid face that day ever forgot the sight.

      "You have news for me," she said.

      They looked at each other, each man mutely imploring

      his neighbor to speak.

      "You need not fear to tell me," said Thyra calmly. "I

      know what you have come to say. My son is drowned."

      "We don't know that, Mrs. Carewe," said Abel Blair

      quickly. "We haven't got the worst to tell you -

      there's hope yet. But Joe Raymond's boat was found last

      night, stranded bottom up, on the Blue Point sand

      shore, forty miles down the coast."

      "Don't look like that, Thyra," said Carl White

      pityingly. "They may have escaped - they may have been

      picked up."

      Thyra looked at him with dull eyes.

      "You know they have not. Not one of you has any hope. I

      have no son. The sea has taken him from me - my bonny

      baby!"

      She turned and went back to her desolate home. None

      dared to follow her. Carl White went home and sent his

      wife over to her.

      Cynthia found Thyra sitting in her accustomed chair.

      Her hands lay, palms upward, on her lap. Her eyes were

      dry and burning. She met Cynthia's compassionate look

      with a fearful smile.

      "Long ago, Cynthia White," she said slowly, "you were

      vexed with me one day, and you told me that God would

      punish me yet, because I made an idol of my son, and

      set it up in His place. Do you remember? Your word was

      a true one. God saw that I loved Chester too much, and

      He meant to take him from me. I thwarted one way when I

      made him give up Damaris. But one can't fight against

      the Almighty. It was decreed that I must lose him - if

      not in one way, then in another. He has been taken from

      me utterly. I shall not even have his grave to tend,

      Cynthia."

      "As near to a mad woman as anything you ever saw, with

      her awful eyes," Cynthia told Carl, afterwards. But she

      did not say so there. Although she was a shallow,

      commonplace soul, she had her share of womanly

      sympathy, and her own life had not been free from

      suffering. It taught her the right thing to do now. She

      sat down by the stricken creature and put her arms

      about her, while she gathered the cold hands in her own

      warm clasp. The tears filled her big, blue eyes and her

      voice trembled as she said:

      "Thyra, I'm sorry for you. I - I - lost a child once -

      my little first-born. And Chester was a dear, good

      lad."

      For a moment Thyra strained her small, tense body away

      from Cynthia's embrace. Then she shuddered and cried

      out. The tears came, and she wept her agony out on the

      other woman's breast.

      As the ill news spread, other Avonlea women kept

      dropping in all through the day to condole with Thyra.

      Many of them came in real sympathy, but some out of

      mere curiosity to see how she took it. Thyra knew this,

      but she did not resent it, as she would once have done.

      She listened very quietly to all the halting efforts at

      consolation, and the little platitudes with which they

      strove to cover the nakedness of bereavement.

      When darkness came Cynthia said she must go home, but

      would send one of her girls over for the night.

      "You won't feel like staying alone," she said.

      Thyra looked up steadily.

      "No. But I want you to send for Damaris Garland."

      "Damaris Garland!" Cynthia repeated the name as if

      disbelieving her own ears. There was never any knowing

      what whim Thyra might take, but Cynthia had not

      expected this.

      "Yes. Tell her I want her - tell her she must come. She

      must hate me bitterly; but I am punished enough to

      satisfy even her hate. Tell her to come to me for

      Chester's sake."

      Cynthia did as she was bid, she sent her daughter,

      Jeanette, for Damaris. Then she waited. No matter what

      duties were calling for her at home she must see the

      interview between Thyra and Damaris. Her curiosity

      would be the last thing to fail Cynthia White. She had

      done very well all day; but it would be asking too much

      of her to expect that she would consider the meeting of

      these two women sacred from her eyes.

      She half believed that Damaris would refuse to come.

      But Damaris came. Jeanette brought her in amid the

      fiery glow of a November sunset. Thyra stood up, and

      for a moment they looked at each other.

      The insolence of Damaris' beauty was gone. Her eyes

      were dull and heavy with weeping, her lips were pale,

      and her face had lost its laughter and dimples. Only

      her hair, escaping from the shawl she had cast around

      it, gushed forth in warm splendor in the sunset light,

      and framed her wan face like the aureole of a Madonna.

      Thyra looked upon her with a shock of remorse. This was

      not the radiant creature she had met on the bridge that

      summer afternoon. This - this - was her work. She held

      out her arms.

      "Oh, Damaris, forgive me. We both loved him - that must

      be a bond between us for life."

      Damaris came forward and threw her arms about the older

      woman, lifting her face. As their lips met even Cynthia

      White realized that she had no business there. She

      vented the irritation of her embarrassment on the

      innocent Jeanette.

      "Come away," she whispered crossly. "Can't you see

      we're not wanted here?"

      She drew Jeanette out, leaving Thyra rocking Damaris in

      her arms, and crooning over her like a mother over her

      child.

      When December had grown old Damaris was still with

      Thyra. It was understood that she was to remain there

      for the winter, at least. Thyra could not bear her to

      be out of her sight. They talked constantly about

      Chester; Thyra confessed all her anger and hatred.

      Damaris had forgiven her; but Thyra could never forgive

      herself. She was greatly changed, and had grown very

      gentle and tender. She even sent for August Vorst and

      begged him to pardon her for the way she had spoken to

      him.

      Winter came late that year, and the season was a very

      open one. There was no snow on the ground and, a month

      after Joe Raymond's boat had been cast up on the Blue

      Point sand shore, Thyra, wandering about in her garden,

      found some pansies blooming under their tangled leaves.

      She was picking them for Damaris when she heard a buggy

      rumble over the bridge and drive up the White lane,

      hidden from her sight by the alders and firs. A few

    &nb
    sp; minutes later Carl and Cynthia came hastily across

      their yard under the huge balm-of-gileads. Carl's face

      was flushed, and his big body quivered with excitement.

      Cynthia ran behind him, with tears rolling down her

      face.

      Thyra felt herself growing sick with fear. Had anything

      happened to Damaris? A glimpse of the girl, sewing by

      an upper window of the house, reassured her.

      "Oh, Thyra, Thyra!" gasped Cynthia.

      "Can you stand some good news, Thyra?" asked Carl, in a

      trembling voice. "Very, very good news!"

      Thyra looked wildly from one to the other.

      "There's but one thing you would dare to call good news

      to me," she cried. "Is it about - about - "

      "Chester! Yes, it's about Chester! Thyra, he is alive -

      he's safe - he and Joe, both of them, thank God!

      Cynthia, catch her!"

      "No, I am not going to faint," said Thyra, steadying

      herself by Cynthia's shoulder. "My son alive! How did

      you hear? How did it happen? Where has he been?"

      "I heard it down at the harbor, Thyra. Mike McCready's

      vessel, the Nora Lee, was just in from the Magdalens.

      Ches and Joe got capsized the night of the storm, but

      they hung on to their boat somehow, and at daybreak

      they were picked up by the Nora Lee, bound for Quebec.

      But she was damaged by the storm and blown clear out of

      her course. Had to put into the Magdalens for repairs,

      and has been there ever since. The cable to the islands

      was out of order, and no vessels call there this time

      of year for mails. If it hadn't been an extra open

      season the Nora Lee wouldn't have got away, but would

      have had to stay there till spring. You never saw such

      rejoicing as there was this morning at the harbor, when

      the Nora Lee came in, flying flags at the mast head."

      "And Chester - where is he?" demanded Thyra.

      Carl and Cynthia looked at each other.

      "Well, Thyra," said the latter, "the fact is, he's over

      there in our yard this blessed minute. Carl brought him

      home from the harbor, but I wouldn't let him come over

      until we had prepared you for it. He's waiting for you

      there."

      Thyra made a quick step in the direction of the gate.

      Then she turned, with a little of the glow dying out of

      her face.

      "No, there's one has a better right to go to him first.

      I can atone to him - thank God, I can atone to him!"

      She went into the house and called Damaris. As the girl

      came down the stairs Thyra held out her hands with a

      wonderful light of joy and renunciation on her face.

      "Damaris," she said, "Chester has come back to us - the

      sea has given him back to us. He is over at Carl

      White's house. Go to him, my daughter, and bring him to

      me!"

      Chapter XI

      The Education Of Betty

      WHEN Sara Currie married Jack Churchill I was broken-

      hearted . . . or believed myself to be so, which, in a

      boy of twenty-two, amounts to pretty much the same

      thing. Not that I took the world into my confidence;

      that was never the Douglas way, and I held myself in

      honor bound to live up to the family traditions. I

      thought, then, that nobody but Sara knew; but I dare

      say, now, that Jack knew it also, for I don't think

      Sara could have helped telling him. If he did know,

      however, he did not let me see that he did, and never

      insulted me by any implied sympathy; on the contrary,

      he asked me to be his best man. Jack was always a

      thoroughbred.

      I was best man. Jack and I had always been bosom

      friends, and, although I had lost my sweetheart, I did

      not intend to lose my friend into the bargain. Sara had

      made a wise choice, for Jack was twice the man I was;

      he had had to work for his living, which perhaps

      accounts for it.

      So I danced at Sara's wedding as if my heart were as

      light as my heels; but, after she and Jack had settled

      down at Glenby I closed The Maples and went abroad . .

      . being, as I have hinted, one of those unfortunate

      mortals who need consult nothing but their own whims in

      the matter of time and money. I stayed away for ten

     
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