CHAPTER V

It was a white Christmas day, after all. During the night it had snowed hard and steadily, but the snow ceased just before dawn, and Nantucketers woke to a Christmas morning of blue skies and golden sunshine over a white-carpeted island.

The two windows of Erica’s room faced toward the harbor below, and with the first slim fingers of sunlight poked in at all the small panes she was awake in her big mahogany bed with the pineapple posts. She lay there blinking drowsily at the light, until she noticed the thin rim of snow on the sill of her opened window. Then she sprang out of bed, shivering, for the room was bitterly cold, and pattered on bare feet across the wide, painted boards of the floor.

Shutting the window energetically, she stood there a moment looking out on a new and shining white world.

“It’s cold enough for skating, too,” she told herself, drawing her high-necked flannel night dress closer about her. The boys would clear some of the snow on Long Pond, or Hummock, as they did each year with the first snowfall, and that afternoon—She stopped, her breath quickening.

“Why—why, it’s _Christmas morning_!” she exclaimed, astonished that she could have forgotten even for that brief, half-waking interval. “A white Christmas, just like Lilla Joy said it would be.”

Her thoughts flew, by a natural kinship of ideas, from Christmas snow to Christmas trees and stockings. Every Christmas, as far back as she could remember, Erica had gathered up her unexplored and bulging stocking and an armful of packages, and gone across the garden to her cousins’ house, to have the added fun of sharing surprises with Tommy and Lis.

This year there would be only Tommy to open bundles with, but—— She stopped abruptly for the second time since waking that morning, as memory gave her another little reminding nudge. The bright face clouded. There wouldn’t be only Tommy this morning. She had completely forgotten Milly and Barbee Thorne.

“But I’m not going to start Christmas by taking silly dislikes and judging folks unkindly,” Erica decided, sturdily. “As Aunt Callie said last night, it’s not going to be a happy Christmas for Milly this year, without her mother.”

She began to pull on her clothes rapidly, still shivering a little, for she was in far too much of a hurry to stop and light the fire which was laid on the broad hearth, ready at the touch of a match to send a comforting golden flame chimneyward.

When she was dressed, she took her woolly red cape from the deep wardrobe and wrapped herself in it, drawing the gathered hood over her tumbled red curls. She looked, with her eager young head cocked alertly on one side, her bright eyes, and the red of her cloak, not unlike an energetic robin redbreast defying snow and cold, in search of an early breakfast worm.

Downstairs she paused in the parlor long enough to admire anew the glistening tree she and Aunt Charity had dressed late last night, and then snatching the fat white stocking hanging from the blackened oak mantel, she tucked it under her cape, with one arm, and with her other retrieved an exciting pile of various sized packages laid out on the end of the sofa, where her particular share of Christmas was always put. The next moment she was out the side door, the sharp wind stinging fresh roses into her already glowing cheeks, and turning the tip of her straight little nose a matching pink.

The snow had not been swept from the porch yet, as the elderly Portuguese, who did the numerous outdoor chores about the place, had not made his appearance at this hour. Fortunately the snow was powdery and dry, for Erica was far too excited to remember such practical things as rubber boots, and dashed across the white garden, arriving, bright-eyed and panting, at her aunt’s side door, just as Tommy, who had watched her approach, opened it to admit her.

The boy put a finger to his lips, grinning, and jerked his head stairward. “Nobody else is awake yet, I guess,” he explained. “Come on in where the tree is, and I’ll light the fire.”

“We picked two good trees yesterday,” Erica observed judicially, watching him light the paper under the kindling, and blow gently to keep the slender flame going. Then her eyes filled suddenly and quite unexpectedly, so that she turned to inspect the tree with great attention, until she had managed to wipe the tell-tale drops away with the back of her hand.

It had come upon her with a force that brought a choking lump into her throat, how much they missed Lis at this familiar Christmas-morning ceremony. It had always been Lis who waked early enough to have the fire roaring hotly before Erica and her stocking appeared. Tommy, struggling with cold and awkward fingers to repair his forgetfulness, was all at once a pathetic figure.

He fumbled so long about getting the fire burning that she wondered, unhappily, if perhaps he, too, were not trying to avoid her glance. She was sure of it a moment later, when he sat back on his heels, muttering under his breath something about smoke getting in his eyes.

But neither of them spoke of what both were feeling, and a moment later they were seated on the carpeted floor before the hearth, their filled stockings on their laps, and opened and unopened packages strewn about them.

But as swiftly as their fingers flew in unwrapping the presents, their unwonted mood of gravity slipped into the normal, joyous excitement of Christmas morning. At last, having examined everything and found it eminently satisfactory, they bundled the wrapping paper into the blaze, and sat contentedly silent for a while, munching sweets from the now empty stockings.

“Christmas must be sort of—funny at sea,” Erica declared, finally, out of that unusual silence.

“Yea-ah,” Tommy’s mouth was uncomfortably full for articulate speech. “Guess Lis’ll be thinking ‘bout us, right this minute.” He sighed. “Wish I could have gone, too, Rick.”

Erica made a face. “And left me here high and dry by myself. No thank you.”

Tommy grinned. “Oh, you’d have had Milly Thorne,” he consoled her wickedly.

Erica ignored this flippancy, and returned to her contemplation of the fire. “I think Christmas at sea might be—rather beautiful, too,” she said, slowly, not looking around. “I love the ocean, Tom. I guess maybe it’s because I was born at sea that I’ve always sort of felt I belong to it. You know,” she added more briskly, “how Sun Li always addresses the presents he sends me home by father, ‘To my Honorable God-daughter, the little Sea Girl’—I love that for a name.”

Tommy grunted. He privately thought it rather flowery and Oriental, but both Lis and he had been carefully respectful on the subject of Sun Li with Erica, ever since one memorable occasion when she had flashed into a towering rage at the age of five, over a bit of teasing on Tommy’s part, and, after flying at the twins like a small wild cat, scratching, biting, and kicking, had wound up with a burst of utterly heart-broken and most unwonted tears. It was the tears that had done more to prevent a repetition of the remarks she objected to, than the temper that had preceded them.

About fifteen minutes later, Aunt Callie and the two visitors arrived downstairs, and Barbee Thorne went into such ecstasies over the trimmed tree and her stuffed stocking, that the moment’s attention was centered entirely about her. Aunt Callie, with her sister-in-law’s help, had hurriedly gotten together some additional gifts for her two new charges at the last minute, so there was a doll for Barbee—a discarded one of Erica’s childish days, redressed by Aunt Charity before she went to bed on Christmas Eve.

The pair of new skates which were to have been Aunt Callie’s present to Erica she had given to Milly instead, and a little note, tucked into Erica’s stocking, explained the exchange, and substituted a string of rose coral beads which Milly Thorne could not have used with the sad little black dresses she was wearing.

Erica was delighted with the corals, though she could not help a small pang of regret for the loss of those beautiful, shining ice skates. Her old pair were almost past sharpening, after years of hard use.

It would have been easier if Milly had only appreciated the skates. She had thanked Mrs. Folger politely, but evinced no enthusiasm at the news, delivered eagerly by Tommy, that Erica and he would take her skating that afternoon on Long Pond.

“I can’t do much skating myself, on account of my leg not being strong enough yet,” he explained. “But we’ll all go out there, and Rick and the Joys will look after you.”

“I don’t know how to skate,” Milly said, in that fretful manner they had resented last evening. “You know, I’ve always lived in the city till now.”

“Oh, we’ll teach you in no time,” Tommy offered, confidentially, though some of that first sparkle of friendly generosity had gone out of his tone under the dampening effect of her lack of responsiveness.

“Mother always said I took cold so easily, she didn’t like me to go out in the snow,” Milly objected, shivering a little. “I think I’d rather stay in here by the fire, with Cousin Callie, if you please. Maybe some other time I’ll feel more like going.”

The words were civil enough, but Tommy and Erica looked at each other blankly. Afraid of taking cold in that brief, infrequent snow so eagerly waited for by the Nantucket children!

But they were too polite—and also too honestly amazed—to voice a further protest, and soon after the long-drawn-out, bountiful Christmas dinner was finished, they took up their skates, harnessed old Polly to the sleigh, and departed for Long Pond, stopping to pile in the young Joys and the Macys on the way.

“I should think,” Tommy observed to his cousin, as he saw her struggling with the worn straps of the old skates at the pond’s edge, “that Milly might have lent her new skates to you, as she won’t use them herself. You know, mother really bought them for you in the first place.”

Erica bit back a sigh, and answered with a heroic effort at absolute fairness: “Well, I was sort of hoping she’d say something about it. But, of course, she doesn’t know they were meant for me, or that my old ones are in such a state.” She surveyed her feet with a rueful air. “I can make these do another year,” she admitted. “It’s only the thought of her not using the others that makes me a little mad.”

“Mother wouldn’t like me to talk about a guest,” Tommy observed, grimly, “but it does seem to me it’s bad enough to have to miss Lis about the house, without——” He didn’t finish his sentence, but Erica put a swift hand on his arm understandingly.

“I know,” she agreed. “It’s going to be harder on you than on me, Tommy. I guess Lis’ll be in Canton in another month now, don’t you? D’you suppose he’ll really meet Sun Li?”

In the interest of the discussion that followed, Milly Thorne and her irritating qualities were forgotten for the time being. It was, therefore, almost as much of a shock to come home that afternoon, flushed with the cold and exercise, and find her sitting by the fire in her black frock, with her fretful young face and sharp, unfriendly black eyes, as it had been the night before when they had first seen her there.

And in the days that followed, neither Tommy nor Erica ever quite lost that first instinctive sense of her being a stranger. It was not that she often did or said anything actively quarrelsome; it was just that she failed utterly to fit into their little circle; so obviously preferring to sit aloof with a book on her lap, but with those strange, unchildlike eyes of hers fixed on the fire instead of the open page before her, that the young Folgers’ efforts to include her in their plans grew more and more half-hearted and perfunctory as time wore on.

Being kind-hearted youngsters, they were honestly sorry for her in her evident unhappiness, and a glance at her black dress was always sufficient to check a too-sharp retort whenever she proved unusually apathetic and aggravating. But friendly relations could not be said to advance appreciably in the household, and Mrs. Folger and Miss Charity, looking on, grew seriously troubled by the situation.

Fortunately, Barbee Thorne made up to everyone for her sister’s deficiencies. Such a rosy, sunny-tempered, affectionate baby was certainly never seen before, the family agreed unanimously. She was never sick or cross or unhappy. She adored everybody about her indiscriminately, and was as easy to amuse and take care of as a kitten or a puppy.

To Erica, who had clung to a large collection of dolls until she was almost twelve, Barbee Thorne was a live doll, to be played with, dressed, and mothered without the uncomfortable consciousness that she was doing something unfitting the new dignity of her teens. Barbee was a distinct addition to the combined Folger households, as far as Erica was concerned. But Milly was a problem to be faced afresh with each new day.

At school, whither she accompanied Erica and Tommy for the new term after Christmas, Milly speedily proved herself quick at her lessons and genuinely interested in the class work. During school hours she lost her sullen air, and seemed more content and like other children. She always had good marks in all her studies, and as a natural consequence soon found herself in high favor with Miss Minor, their teacher. With the rest of the pupils, however, she maintained that same unfriendly aloofness to which she clung so persistently at home. She made no friends, except Miss Minor, who often invited her home to tea after school was over, and occasionally, with Mrs. Folger’s permission, kept her overnight in her tiny, gray-shingled house on Pearl Street.

From these visits Milly returned with a new softness in her black eyes, and a noticeable lessening of that peevish discontent which so irritated Tommy and Erica and worried their elders. But the change never lasted more than a few hours at most, when some unfortunate remark of one or another of the family would, all unintentionally, send her back into her sullen unfriendliness once more.

“She’s like a clammy wet blanket round the house all the time,” Erica complained once, bitterly, to Tommy and Lilla Joy. “It doesn’t make a speck of difference whether you try to be nice to her or lose your temper and speak the truth about her manners. She’s just as disagreeable and anxious to get rid of your company and be alone, either way. Of course, I know she’s lost her mother and her home, and I’m sorry for her as I can be. I’d like to be friends, if she’d only let me. But when some one won’t meet you even a quarter of the way, what’s a person to do, anyhow?”

“Maybe she’ll get over it,” Lilla Joy suggested, hopefully. Lilla was no more prejudiced in the newcomer’s favor than Erica, but she adored the latter and was merely trying to be comforting on general principles.

“I wish Lis were at home,” Erica responded. “He’s not the kind that gets excited and flies off at a tangent as Tommy and I do. He’s sort of quiet, you know, and soothing. I guess perhaps he could find out what’s ailing Milly. Somehow I don’t believe it’s all grief for her mother. That would make her unhappy, but it needn’t make her sulky and hate folks as she seems to. Tommy says it’s just my imagination, but I really do think there’s something else—something quite different—that’s worrying her and making her act this way.”

“I suppose you couldn’t ask her,” Lilla said.

“I’ve tried once or twice,” Erica confessed. “Sort of roundabout, you know, so she wouldn’t think I was just curious. But you—you can’t seem to get _at_ Milly at all.”

“Well, old Lis ought to be home in another month, now,” Tommy said. “We counted up, Rick, you remember, that April at the latest would bring the _Spray_ back. Maybe sooner.”

His listeners both brightened. “I’d forgotten it was quite so near,” Lilla declared. “My, Tommy, I’ll be glad to see Lis round here again! He’s quieter than you, but he leaves a—a sort of hole when he’s away.”

“I know,” Erica confirmed, gloomily. “I don’t see why I couldn’t have been born a boy, and then Tommy and Lis and I could have all shipped together.”

The 1st of April came and went, but no news of Lister Folger came to Nantucket. By the end of the first week in that month the whole Folger family showed the strain of suspense by a most novel abstraction and a tendency to start nervously at sounds.

The _Spray_ would not, of course, put in at Nantucket, on her return voyage, but there had already been more than ample time for her to have reached Boston, her home port, and for Lis to have either made the trip from there to the island, or to have written, if, for some reason, Captain Bartlet had not wished him to leave the ship.