“What’s the matter with that niece of yourn?” demanded the yardman gloomily of Aunt Josephine. “What’s a young pretty girl want to come and hide herself down here for?”
“My niece is resting,” declared Aunt Josephine stiffly.
“Them dunes ain’t good for wore-out people,” objected the yardman, soothing his head with his fingers. “There’s a monotoness about them. I seen her yesterday take her parasol and like to beat one down, she got so mad at it. Someday she’s going to notice how many of them there are, and all of a sudden go loony.” He sniffed. “And then what kind of a proposition we going to have on our hands?”
“That will do, Percy,” snapped Aunt Jo. “Go about your business. I want ten pounds of broken-up shells rolled into the front walk.”
“What’ll I do with that parasol?” he demanded. “I picked up the pieces.”
“It’s not my parasol,” said Aunt Jo tartly. “You can take the pieces and roll them into the front walk too.”
And so the June of Fifi’s abandoned honeymoon drifted away, and every morning her rubber shoes left wet footprints along a desolate shore at the end of nowhere. For a while she seemed to thrive on the isolation, and the sea wind blew her cheeks scarlet with health; but after a week had passed, her aunts saw that she was noticeably restless and less cheerful even than when she came.
“I’m afraid it’s getting on your nerves, my dear,” said Aunt Cal one particularly wild and windy afternoon. “We love to have you here, but we hate to see you looking so sad. Why don’t you ask your mother to take you to Europe for the summer?”
“Europe’s too dressed up,” objected Fifi wearily. “I like it here where everything’s rugged and harsh and rude, like the end of the world. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay longer.”
She stayed longer, and seemed to grow more and more melancholy as the days slipped by to the raucous calls of the gulls and the flashing tumult of the waves along the shore. Then one afternoon she returned at twilight from the longest of her long walks with a strange derelict of a man. And after one look at him her aunts thought that the gardener’s prophecy had come true and that solitude had driven Fifi mad at last.
II
He was a very ragged wreck of a man as he stood in the doorway on that summer evening, blinking into Aunt Cal’s eyes; rather like a beachcomber who had wandered accidentally out of a movie of the South Seas. In his hands he carried a knotted stick of a brutal, treacherous shape. It was a murderous-looking stick, and the sight of it caused Aunt Cal to shrink back a little into the room.
Fifi shut the door behind them and turned to her aunts as if this were the most natural occasion in the world.
“This is Mr. Hopkins,” she announced, and then turned to her companion for corroboration. “Or is it Hopwood?”
“Hopkins,” said the man hoarsely. “Hopkins.”
Fifi nodded cheerfully.
“I’ve asked Mr. Hopkins to dinner,” she said.
There was some dignity which Aunt Cal and Aunt Josephine had acquired, living here beside the proud sea, that would not let them show surprise. The man was a guest now; that was enough. But in their hearts all was turmoil and confusion. They would have been no more surprised had Fifi brought in a many-headed monster out of the Atlantic.
“Won’t you—won’t you sit down, Mr. Hopkins?” said Aunt Cal nervously.
Mr. Hopkins looked at her blankly for a moment, and then made a loud clicking sound in the back of his mouth. He took a step toward a chair and sank down on its gilt frailty as though he meant to annihilate it immediately. Aunt Cal and Aunt Josephine collapsed rather weakly on the sofa.
“Mr. Hopkins and I struck up an acquaintance on the beach,” explained Fifi. “He’s been spending the summer down here for his health.”
Mr. Hopkins fixed his eyes glassily on the two aunts.
“I come down for my health,” he said.
Aunt Cal made some small sound; but recovering herself quickly, joined Aunt Jo in nodding eagerly at the visitor, as if they deeply sympathized.
“Yeah,” he repeated cheerfully.
“He thought the sea air would make him well and strong again,” said Fifi eagerly. “That’s why he came down here. Isn’t that it, Mr. Hopkins?”
“You said it, sister,” agreed Mr. Hopkins, nodding.
“So you see, Aunt Cal,” smiled Fifi, “you and Aunt Jo aren’t the only two people who believe in the medicinal quality of this location.”
“No,” agreed Aunt Cal faintly. “There are—there are three of us now.”
Dinner was announced.
“Would you—would you”—Aunt Cal braced herself and looked Mr. Hopkins in the eye—“would you like to wash your hands before dinner?”
“Don’t mention it.” Mr. Hopkins waved his fingers at her carelessly.
They went in to dinner, and after some furtive backing and bumping due to the two aunts trying to keep as far as possible from Mr. Hopkins, sat down at table.
“Mr. Hopkins lives in the woods,” said Fifi. “He has a little house all by himself, where he cooks his own meals and does his own washing week in and week out.”
“How fascinating!” said Aunt Jo, looking searchingly at their guest for some signs of the scholarly recluse. “Have you been living near here for some time?”
“Not so long,” he answered with a leer. “But I’m stuck on it, see? I’ll maybe stay here till I rot.”
“Are you—do you live far away?” Aunt Cal was wondering what price she could get for the house at a forced sale, and how she and her sister could ever bear to move.
“Just a mile down the line…. This is a pretty gal you got here,” he added, indicating their niece with his spoon.
“Why—yes.” The two ladies glanced uneasily at Fifi.
“Someday I’m going to pick her up and run away with her,” he added pleasantly.
Aunt Cal, with a heroic effort, switched the subject away from their niece. They discussed Mr. Hopkins’ shack in the woods. Mr. Hopkins liked it well enough, he confessed, except for the presence of minute animal life, a small fault in an otherwise excellent habitat.
After dinner Fifi and Mr. Hopkins went out to the porch, while her aunts sat side by side on the sofa turning over the pages of magazines and from time to time glancing at each other with stricken eyes. That a savage had a few minutes since been sitting at their dinner table, that he was now alone with their niece on the dark veranda—no such terrible adventure had ever been allotted to their prim, quiet lives before.
Aunt Cal determined that at nine, whatever the consequences, she would call Fifi inside; but she was saved this necessity, for after half an hour the young lady strolled in calmly and announced that Mr. Hopkins had gone home. They looked at her, speechless.
“Fifi!” groaned Aunt Cal. “My poor child! Sorrow and loneliness have driven you insane!”
“We understand, my dear,” said Aunt Jo, touching her handkerchief to her eyes. “It’s our fault for letting you stay. A few weeks in one of those rest-cure places, or perhaps even a good cabaret, will——”
“What do you mean?” Fifi looked from one to the other in surprise. “Do you mean you object to my bringing Mr. Hopkins here?”