Detail from Woman Reading / La Liseuse (1895), oil on board, Henri Matisse
from Castle Nowhere: Lake-Country Sketches (1875)
'Come, then, Jarvis.' And she led the way through a low door into a long narrow room with a row of little square windows on each side all covered with little square white curtains. The walls and ceiling were planked and the workmanship of the whole rude and clumsy; but a gay carpet covered the floor, a chandelier adorned with lustres, hung from a hook in the ceiling, large gilded vases and a mirror in a tarnished gilt frame adorned a shelf over the hearth, mahogany chairs stood in ranks against the wall under the little windows and a long narrow table ran down the centre of the apartment from end to end. It all seemed strangely familiar; of what did it remind him? His eyes fell upon the table-legs; they were riveted to the floor. Then it came to him at once,—the long narrow cabin of a lake steamer.
'I wonder if it is not anchored after all,' he thought.
'Just a few shavings and one little stick, Lorez,' said Silver; 'enough to give us light and drive away the damp.'
Up flared the blaze and spread abroad the dear home feeling. (O hearth-fire, good genius of home, with thee a log-cabin is cheery and bright, without thee the palace a dreary waste!)
'And now, while Lorez is preparing supper, you will come and see my pets,' said Silver, in her soft tone of unconscious command.
'By all means,' replied Waring. 'Anything in the way of mermaidens?'
'Mermaidens dwell in the water, they cannot live in houses as we can; did you not know that? I have seen them on moonlight nights, and so has Lorez; but Aunt Shadow never saw them.'
'Another member of the family,—Aunt Shadow?'
'Yes,' replied Silver; 'but she is not here now. She went away one night when I was asleep. I do not know why it is,' she added sadly, 'but if people go away from here in the night they never come back. Will it be so with you, Jarvis?'
'No; for I will take you with me,' replied the young man lightly.
'Very well; and father will go too, and Lorez,' said Silver.
To this addition, Waring, like many another man in similar circumstances, made no reply. But Silver did not notice the omission. She had opened a door, and behold, they stood together in a bower of greenery and blossom, flowers growing everywhere,—on the floor, up the walls, across the ceiling, in pots, in boxes, in baskets, on shelves, in cups, in shells, climbing, crowding each other, swinging, hanging, winding around everything,—a riot of beauty with perfumes for a language. Two white gulls stood in the open window and gravely surveyed the stranger.
'They stay with me almost all the time,' said the water-maiden; 'every morning they fly out to sea for a while, but they always come back.'
Then she flitted to and fro, kissed the opening blossoms and talked to them, tying back the more riotous vines and gravely admonishing them.
'They are so happy here,' she said; 'it was dull for them on shore. I would not live on the shore! Would you?'
'Certainly not,' replied Waring, with an air of having spent his entire life upon a raft. 'But you did not find all these blossoms on the shores about here, did you?'
'Father found them,—he finds everything; in his boat almost every night is something for me. I hope he will come soon; he will be so glad to see you.'
'Will he? I wish I was sure of that,' thought Waring. Then aloud,
'Has he any men with him?' he asked carelessly.
'O no; we live here all alone now,—father, Lorez, and I.'
'But you were expecting a Jacob?'
'I have been expecting Jacob for more than two years. Every night I watch for him, but he comes not. Perhaps he and Aunt Shadow will come together,—do you think they will?' said Silver, looking up into his eyes with a wistful expression.
