CHAPTER I

A SURPRISE

If you have lived all your life in a sleepy little New England village like Braeburn, you get so you just don’t expect exciting, story-book sort of things to happen. I know that I, Gay Annersley, fifteen years old and an orphan, but living with the nicest aunt, uncle and cousins in the world--isn’t that the proper way to begin an autobiography?--certainly never expected anything like Sunset Island to happen to me.

Perhaps now, having written that much, I’d better go back and explain how it all came about, only I somehow simply had to put Sunset Island into the first paragraph.

Ever since I was a baby I’ve lived with Aunt Mollie and Uncle Charles, because my own mother, who was Aunt Mollie’s twin sister, died when I wasn’t quite a week old, and of course my father, being just a man, couldn’t be expected to know how to bring up all by himself a daughter as young as that. Besides, Aunt Mollie had a baby of her own then, Dan, who was two, and she declared she had plenty of room in her big old-fashioned Braeburn house, and still more in her heart, for another, especially when that poor red, crying, motherless mite that was Gay Annersley in those days, was her twin sister’s only child.

So that’s how I came to be one of Aunt Mollie’s flock, and for quite a long time I didn’t even know she wasn’t my own mother. For she has never once in all those years made any difference in the love she gives us, between Andrée, who is her real daughter, and me.

She never made any difference, either, between another adopted child she found room for later in her big family and her still bigger heart. This was Sydney Ross, just my age, and the son of Uncle Charles’ old business partner. Syd’s mother and father had died in a dreadful typhoid epidemic when the little fellow wasn’t more than five or six, and Uncle Charles and Aunt Mollie had taken him in promptly, as they had me.

Andrée’s the one girl cousin I possess, but there’s still another boy besides Dan and Sydney--the baby of the family, named Joe for a sea-captain uncle of ours, but because of the color of his hair, never called anything except Reddy. Reddy’s a darling, and just ten; not a bit spoiled, either, in spite of being the youngest.

I wish I could say the same thing for my cousin Andrée, but I can’t. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that she and I, being the only girls, would be chums and like the same things, and the same people. Well, we’re not, and we don’t.

Andrée liked dolls, and silly, girly sort of books, and tea parties--that kind of thing, and I loathed them. I always wanted to play ball with Dan and Sydney, when they’d let me tag round after them, and climb trees, and swim in the lake, and go on cross-country hikes. When I was ten I could beat both the boys at sprinting, though they could tire me on long distance runs.

I still like tramping better than parties and dancing, which Andrée is crazy over. But then Andrée’s pretty, in a really lovely pink and cream and golden fashion, and sure to be popular wherever she goes, and I’m not. I’m little and skinny, and have half a million freckles, and a turn-up nose, though I have nice eyes--hazel, with long lashes. I can say that without being vain, because Aunt Mollie says I’ve got my mother’s eyes, and everyone admits _she_ was a beauty. I’m like my daddy, and what can be all right in a man, you know, can be quite plain in a little girl.

However, I’ve never cared much about it one way or the other. I’ve been too busy, I guess. And I remember my father a little--he died when I was six--but I know how wonderful he was, and I’d rather look like him than be pretty like Andrée. Honestly I would. Because Daddy was the bravest and finest man I’ve ever heard of, even counting in the famous heroes in books and histories.

He was a sea captain, just as Uncle Joe is, and lost his life in a dreadful storm at sea, saving one of his sailors who had been washed overboard. Daddy dove right into that raging sea, Uncle Joe wrote Aunt Mollie--Uncle Joe was his first mate at the time--and reached the man, and held him up safely till a boat could be lowered away. But a heavy crate that had been washed overboard, too, struck Daddy’s head just as he was being lifted into the lifeboat. He never recovered consciousness again, and died the next morning, and they had to bury him at sea.

So maybe you can understand why I’m proud of looking like him, and always will be. A girl with a father like that has got something big to live up to all the rest of her life. And I’m certainly going to do it if I can.

Up to six months ago, we’d all been just about as happy in the old-fashioned grey and white house on State Street, as any family could ask to be. Uncle Charles wasn’t a rich man, but he was president of the First National Bank in Braeburn, and his salary must have been a pretty nice one, for we children had everything we wanted in the way of clothes and toys, and Aunt Mollie had a car of her own. Andrée and I went to Miss Porter’s private school on Elm Street, instead of to the public school, and Dan was expecting to go to Andover that fall.

And then, the spring before, Uncle Charles had what the doctors called a nervous break-down, and had to give up his position at the bank. Aunt Mollie told me a little about it--you see, she’d gotten in the way of treating me almost like an older person, and talking things over with me that she never told Andrée.

It seems Uncle Charles had been working awfully hard at the bank, which was going through some kind of crisis. I didn’t quite understand that part, but I know it had something to do with someone’s bad judgment in investments, and that, though the fault really wasn’t his, Uncle Charles had insisted on giving up all his own fortune so the bank’s depositors shouldn’t lose a penny. Aunt Mollie was so proud of him for doing it that she never seemed to realize it meant we would have to sell the old house on State Street we loved so much and be quite, quite poor people.

But I guess Uncle Charles realized it all right, and probably he blamed himself for not somehow knowing what the other man was doing. Anyhow, there we were, all at once, with no money except a few hundred dollars of Aunt Mollie’s in the savings bank, the house having to be sold just as soon as we could find a buyer who would pay a fair price, and poor Uncle Charles so ill and nervous and unlike his usual jolly self that Dr. West began to talk about the possibility of his having to go to a sanitarium.

Of course there was Syd’s little income that his own father had left him, but neither Aunt Mollie nor Uncle Charles would touch a penny of that, though Sydney begged and _begged_ them. Anyhow it wasn’t much, just enough to send him to boarding school later, and college, with a bit left over to start him in some good business afterwards.

Aunt Mollie put her arms around me the night after Dr. West first hinted at the sanitarium, and for the first time in my life I saw her give way and cry as if her heart were broken.

“Oh, Gay, darling, what are we going to do?” she asked in a trembly sort of voice that made a big lump come in my own throat to hear. “I’d do anything, _anything_ to make your uncle well. But where are we going to find the money to pay for a sanitarium?”

“Maybe it won’t be necessary after all,” I said as cheerfully as I could. “I thought he seemed a little better today, didn’t you?”

Aunt Mollie’s never been the kind to look on the dark side of things, but though she tried to cheer up and smile, I could see she hadn’t much heart in it.

“Wel-ll, perhaps so, dear,” she replied with a little sigh she tried to smother. “But he’s been ill for over six months now. I can’t seem to see any real improvement.”

“And perhaps a nice rich buyer will come along soon,” I hurried on, “who’ll want this house so badly he’ll give a whacking big price for it--oh, _lots_ more than we’re asking. Then we’d have money enough to live on for the next few years, while Dan and Sydney and I are growing up and learning to support the family.”

She kissed me then, and called me her blessed little comfort, and blamed herself for being, as she put it, “cowardly and lacking in faith.” And we didn’t talk about it again for several days. But I thought and thought, trying to think up a way out, until my head felt actually dizzy.

Only, when you’re just fifteen, and a girl, what can you possibly do in a situation like that? It looked pretty hopeless, but I knew it wouldn’t help matters any if I gave in and cried, too, so I set my teeth hard, and Syd and Dan and I talked and talked and _talked_, though none of it seemed to get us any nearer the edge of our Slough of Despond.

And then, tumbling on each other’s heels, as you might say, right out of a blue sky, two wonderful things happened. We found a buyer for the house, at a fairly good price, though not quite what Aunt Mollie had hoped for. And Uncle Joe’s ship, the _Myra_, came into New York after five years up and down the South Seas and the Indian Ocean, and Uncle Joe, without waiting to send a telegram, took the first train out to Braeburn and walked in on us just as we were sitting down to supper.

I don’t think I would have remembered him, because I wasn’t quite ten the last time I’d seen him, but of course the minute Aunt Mollie jumped up from the table, crying, “Joe, Joe!” in that excited, breathless way, I knew who our unexpected visitor was.

He was a big man, with broad shoulders, and a sort of squarish, red face with a grey mustache, and the twinklingest, jolliest grey eyes I’ve ever seen. I knew right off that I was going to like my Uncle Joe, even before we’d had a chance to speak a word to each other.

Aunt Mollie was hanging on to his arm with both hands as if she never meant to let him go again, and I guessed she was not far from tears, too, though, as I said before, I’d never seen her cry but once in my life. She kept repeating, softly, almost as if she were saying a prayer in church, “Joe, I’ve needed you so! I’ve needed you so!” And he just patted her shoulder and cleared his throat two or three times.

The boys and I hung back a little, at first--I don’t know exactly why--probably shyness, for I could see by their expressions that Dan and Syd were as excited as I was over his arrival. In fact I was so excited that my knees suddenly felt so weak and shaky under me, I couldn’t have moved if I’d tried. It was the queerest feeling.

You see, it came to me the minute I heard Aunt Mollie call him Joe, and I looked up and saw him beaming at us all with that nice smile of his, that he’d been the last person to see my daddy alive, and that he could tell me, if he only would, so many things I’d always simply _ached_ to know about the part of his life he’d spent at sea. I made up my mind then and there that when we got to know each other better, I was going to take Uncle Joe off alone somewhere and ask him about a thousand questions.

But Andrée apparently wasn’t the least bit shy. She went up and kissed him as calmly as if she’d known him all her life, and said, “Welcome home, Uncle Joe! I’m your niece, Andrée. Don’t you remember me?”

Andrée can always be counted on to do the pretty, polite thing no matter how surprised she is. I can’t seem to think fast enough.

Uncle Joe put one arm around her and kissed her, at the same time holding out his other hand to me.

“Then this must be Gay,” he said in a nice, deep, _gruff-ish_ sort of voice, and I was scooped up beside Andrée in a regular bear’s hug, right off my tip-toes, too, because I’m little and Uncle Joe is simply huge. When I say huge, I mean across and up-and-down, both. He’s one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen, I think, but he carries himself so straight, and moves so lightly and quickly, you don’t quite realize at first just how enormous he is, he’s so perfectly proportioned.

Then he spoke to the boys, and made some funny sailor jokes that set them grinning, but he kept one arm tight about my shoulders all the time, and somehow I knew it was because of Daddy. Aunt Mollie had told me he simply worshipped Daddy, and had refused to be made captain of another ship, which he had a chance of being, because he preferred to keep on sailing as mate with Daddy. They’d been at school together, and college, and it was through Uncle Joe that Daddy first met my mother at a Fraternity party in their freshman year.

Finally we somehow got settled down to supper once more, with Uncle Joe between Aunt Mollie and me, and for a while everybody tried to talk at once, and the bedlam was awful. Uncle Charles was upstairs asleep--he’d been having one of his bad days--and when things grew too noisy, Aunt Mollie hushed us for fear we’d wake him, and told us no one but Uncle Joe was to open his lips, except for eating purposes, for the next fifteen minutes.

“So now, Joe, you have a clear field,” she laughed. She suddenly looked almost as pink-cheeked and young and unworried as Andrée. “Tell us all about yourself, and how you happened to come home and surprise us this way.”

Uncle Joe smiled that specially nice smile of his back at her.

“Well, I had two perfectly good reasons, Mollie,” he chuckled. Then his eyes stopped laughing, and grew quite grave all at once, and he put his hand on Aunt Mollie’s arm. “I somehow felt you might need the wanderer back for a while, when I heard about Charles, my dear. And--number two--” his eyes crinkled up at the corners again, “I’ve got a plan to propose.”

Syd started to shout “Hoo-_ray_!” and stuffed a big piece of biscuit into his mouth in a hurry, remembering we weren’t to speak for another ten minutes or so yet.

“Well, well! Not a comment,” Uncle Joe laughed. “Mollie, you’ve got them well trained. I suppose, then, since they can’t ask questions, I’d better end the suspense at once, so here goes! I brought the _Myra_ back especially to take a certain family not far off at the moment, on a cruise of three or four months down to the nice, hot tropics, away from snow, ice and winter worries, to search for rest and health for my brother-in-law, Charles Jennings, principally; and for the rest--” he hesitated teasingly, and glanced deliberately about the table at each of us in turn. He had to grin, then, at the expressions of our faces. Syd and Dan looked as though they’d _explode_ in another second if Aunt Mollie didn’t give in about talking, or Uncle Joe didn’t hurry and finish what he’d started to say. Even Andrée’s blue eyes were shining, and I know I felt excited the way Syd looked.

“Excuse me, that wasn’t quite fair of me,” Uncle Joe apologized, still chuckling. “I was thinking we might head for the Caribbean, and make our headquarters on Sunset Island.”

And then I simply couldn’t keep still another instant. I was so excited that I was trembling again. “Sunset Island,” I burst out. “Oh, Uncle Joe, it sounds like all the treasure-island stories I’ve ever read--and even nicer! What is it?”

“Why, some people believe it is a treasure island,” Uncle Joe said quickly. “But I can’t guarantee that. Still, there’ll be no harm in having a hunt, of course. It’s a small island, not far from Martinique----”

“Where your great-great-great-grandmother came from,” Syd interrupted breathlessly in his turn. “The one Andrée’s named for, you know.”

“And who used to play with the Empress Josephine when they were children, before she _was_ Empress of France,” I supplied eagerly. “I always wished they’d named me for her instead of Andrée. She doesn’t care.”

“I do, too,” Andrée said indignantly. “You always say that, Gay Annersley, just because I don’t like to read stupid old history books all day.” She pouted and her eyes filled. Crying makes me homelier than ever, because I scowl and my eyes get red, but Andrée looks like a pathetic, pink and white baby when she cries, and strangers think she must be horribly abused and will do anything to cheer her up again.

Uncle Joe evidently reacted in the usual way, for he looked rather alarmed and terribly sympathetic, and hurried on with his explanations about the island before the tears should actually spill over.

“Yes, yes, that’s the place,” he assented. “Makes it all the more appropriate for us to be going back there, doesn’t it? Of course Sunset Island’s not really Martinique, but Martinique’s the nearest land. We had to send there to have my deed to the island recorded.”

“You mean you _own_ this island, Uncle Joe?” Syd demanded, staring with round, amazed eyes. (Of course, after being one of the family all these years, he considered Uncle Joe his uncle too.)

“Yes, _sir_,” Uncle Joe said promptly. “Though I’ve never set foot on my property. It’s not a long story,” he added, twinkling again. “A few words will tell you how I became a landed proprietor, and then we’ll get down to discussing plans and sailing dates. The former owner was a Frenchman by the name of Jean Carreau, who had a fine old plantation house, in the Spanish style, and an orange grove on the island, besides growing some sugar-cane, too, I believe. The war ruined him financially and he lost his only son at Mons, which seemed to take all the courage out of him, poor fellow.

“It cost too much to operate his plantation, with the market and the price of labor what they were after the war, so in the end, after making a losing fight for a year, he just quietly pulled up stakes one day, took his wife--who wasn’t strong, and had come to hate the island and its loneliness--and they went abroad with what money they had left; it was mighty little. There they wandered about from place to place, getting poorer and more discouraged all the time, and two years ago I met them in India, pretty much up against it, as I soon discovered. I’d known them years before, when they spent a winter in the States, and Mr. Carreau had done me a favor--a very great favor, but no matter about that now.”

“Joe, I can finish your story,” Aunt Mollie said gently, shaking her head at him. “You found your chance to repay that old favor, by buying his island, house, plantation, orange grove and all the rest of it, though you hadn’t the slightest use for any of them.”

Uncle Joe blushed fierily through his mahogany-colored tan.

“At a ridiculously cheap figure,” he said, then. “I couldn’t make the honest old fellow take what I was sure the island ought to be worth. And, Mollie, you’re wrong about not having a use for it. I’m going to take you all down there to spend the winter hunting that old pirate Morgan’s treasure which tradition says is buried somewhere on that very island of mine. Don’t you see, it will give us all time to think things out, and will do more for Charles than a hundred sanitariums. I never did believe in sanitariums,” he finished, and blew his nose loudly, because I think he was afraid Aunt Mollie was once more on the edge of tears.

“Buck up, old girl,” he told her, and patted her hand as though she’d been Reddy’s age and had bumped herself on something hard. “It may not be too luxurious--the house has been deserted for years, you know--but it’s a splendid climate, and we can live on the schooner if necessary till we get things patched up shipshape ashore. Come now, say you’ll go, Mollie! I can see these girls and boys aren’t going to put any difficulties in the way.” And his jolly, rumbling little chuckle boomed out so contagiously that we were all one broad grin around the table, including Aunt Mollie who had forgotten she wanted to cry as suddenly as she’d thought of it.

“Oh, Joe, it--it sounds like a little bit of heaven on earth after all these long months of worry,” she said in a voice that shook. “I’ll say yes, dear boy, of course, if--if Charles is willing.”