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Updated: June 5, 2025
You're nothing but a poor little lamb, Deolda, playing with a wolf, for all your spirit. There's nothing he'd stop at. Nothing," he repeated, staring at Johnny. "I wouldn't give a cent for that Johnny Deutra's life until I'm married to you, Deolda. I've seen the way Mark Hammar looks at him you have, too. I tell you, Mark Hammar don't value the life of any man who stands in his way!"
And so was Johnny Deutra, for from that first glance of Deolda's that dared him, love laid its heavy hand on his young shoulders. "What's your name, dear?" my aunt asked. "Deolda Costa," said she. "Oh, you're one-armed Manel's girl. I don't remember seeing you about lately." "I been working to New Bedford. My father an' mother both died. I came up for the funeral.
When my aunt was ready for bed there was no Deolda. Later came the sound of footsteps and my aunt's voice in the hall outside my room. "That you, Deolda?" "Yes'm." "Where were you all evening?" "Oh, just out under the lilacs." "For pity's sake! Out under the lilacs! What were you doing out there?" Deolda's voice came clear and tranquil. "Making love with Johnny Deutra." I held my breath.
She caught him by the wrist. "Tell me what's happened!" "The other feller he's lost." "Lost?" said Deolda, her breath drawn in sharply. "Lost how?" "Washed overboard," said Joe. "See looka here. When Johnny got ashore this is what he says."
"I'll call her," I said. But Deolda wasn't anywhere; not a sign of her. She'd vanished. Conboy and Aunt Josephine looked at each other. "She's gone to him," said Conboy. My aunt leaned toward him and whispered, "What do you think?" "Hush!" said Conboy, sternly. "Don't think, Josephine! Don't speak. Don't even dream! Don't let your mind stray.
I imagine that my aunt excused herself for deliberately, running into foul weather by telling herself that Deolda Was her "lot," something the Lord had sent her to take care of. "Who was one-armed Manel?" I asked, tagging after my aunt.
"Go on," my aunt told the boy. "Go home!" And she and Deolda went into the house, her laughter filling it with awful sound. After a time she quieted down. She stood staring out of the window, hands clenched. "Well?" she said, defiantly. "Well?" She looked at us, and what was in her eyes made chills go down me. Triumph was what was in her eyes.
I had seen only the subservient ones who had accepted life. Deolda was a fierce and passionate reaction against destiny. It's a queer thing, when you think of it, for a girl to be brought up face to face with the wreck of a tragic passion, to grow up in the house with love's ashes and to see what were lovers turned into an old hag and a cantankerous, one-armed man nagging each other.
"You that's what. I can't stand it to hear you go on." Deolda looked at her with a sort of wonder. "We were only saying out loud what every girl's thinking about when she marries a man of forty-five, or when she marries a man who's sixty-five. It's a trade the world's like that." "Let me tell you one thing," said my aunt. "You can't fool with Capt. Mark Hammar.
My aunt would fume about it, but she did nothing. We were all under Deolda's enchantment. As for me, I adored her; she had a look that always disarmed me. She would sit brooding with a look I had come to know as the "Deolda look." Tears would come to her eyes and slide down her face. "Deolda," I would plead, "what are you crying about?" "Life," she answered.
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