Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let all the worries of the day drift away.
This is your time and your space.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
It was winter in Rakot and much was made of small things.
The arrival of Nora Shelley's weekly letter to her father and mother was an event in the village.
The postmistress in the cove store spread the news it had come and that night the Shelley kitchen would be crowded.
Isabelle Shelley,
Nora's younger sister,
Read the letter aloud by virtue of having gone to school long enough to be able to pronounce the words and tell where the place is named was situated.
The Camerons had spent the autumn in New York and had then gone south for the winter.
Nora wrote freely of her new life.
In the beginning she admitted great homesickness but after the first few letters she made no further mention of that.
She wrote little of herself but she described fully the places she'd visited,
The people she'd met and the wonderful things she'd seen.
She sent affectionate messages to all her old friends and asked after all her old interests.
The letters came to be more and more like those of a stranger and one apart from the Rakot life and the mother and father felt it.
She's changing,
Muttered old Nathan.
It had to be so.
It's well for her,
It is.
But it hurts.
She ain't ours anymore.
We've lost the girl,
Wife.
Lost her forever.
Rob Fletcher always came and listened to the letters in silence while the others buzzed and commented.
Rob was much changed,
The Harbour Folk said.
He had grown unsociable and preferred to stay home and read books rather than go a-visiting as others did.
The Harbour Folk shook their heads over this.
There was something wrong with a man who read books when there was plenty of other amusements.
Jacob Radnor had read books all one winter and had drowned himself in the spring,
They said.
So that was what became of books.
The Camerons came later to Dalvey the next summer on account of John Cameron's health,
Which was not good.
It was the 1st of August before a host of servants came to put Dalvey in habitable order.
And a week later the family came.
They brought a house full of guests with them.
At sunset on the day of her arrival,
Nora Shelley looked out across the harbour to the fishing village.
She was tired after her journey and she had not meant to go over until the morning.
But now she knew she must go at once for her mother was over there and the old life called to her.
The northwest wind swept up the channel and whistled alluringly to her at the window of her luxurious room.
And it brought to her the tang of the salt wastes and filled her heart with a great bittersweet yearning.
Nora Shelley was more beautiful than ever.
She had blossomed out to a gracious fulfilment of womanhood.
Even the Camerons had wondered at her swift adaptation to her new surroundings.
She seemed to have put Raycott behind her as one puts by an old garment.
In everything she had held her own royally,
Her adopted parents were proud of her.
Her beauty and her nameless untamed charm,
They had lavished every indulgence upon her.
And in those few short months,
She had lived more keenly and fully in all the life before her.
But when she looked from her window to the waves and the star of the lighthouse and the blaze of the sunset in the window of the fishing houses,
And when she heard the summons of the wind,
Something broke loose in her soul and overwhelmed her like a wave of the sea.
She must go home at once,
At once,
Not a moment could she wait.
She was dressed for dinner,
But with tingling fingers,
She threw off her costly gown and put on her dark travelling suit.
She left her hair as it was and knotted a crimson scarf about her head.
She would slip quietly away to the boathouse,
Get Davy to launch the little sailboat,
And then for a fleet skim over the harbour before that glorious wind.
She had hoped not to be seen,
But Miss Cameron met her in the hall.
Nora,
She said in astonishment.
I must go,
Auntie,
I must go,
The girl cried feverishly.
She was afraid Mrs Cameron would try to prevent her,
And all at once she knew she could not bear that.
Must go where?
Dinner is almost ready and.
.
.
I don't want any dinner,
I'm going home,
I'll sail over.
My dear child,
Don't be foolish,
It's too late to go over the harbour tonight.
They won't be expecting you,
Wait till the morning.
No,
You don't understand,
I must go,
My mother is over there.
Something in the girl's last sentence,
Or the tone in which it was uttered brought a look of pain to Mrs Cameron's face.
But she made no further attempt to dissuade her.
If you must,
But you cannot go alone,
The wind is too high and it's too late for you to go over by yourself,
Clark Bryant will take you.
Nora would have protested,
But she knew it would be in vain.
She submitted somewhat suddenly and walked down to the shore in silence.
Clark Bryant strode beside her,
Humouring her mood.
He was a tall,
Stout man with an ugly,
Clever,
Sarcastic face.
He was as clever as he looked,
And was one of the younger millionaires whom John Cameron drew around him in the development of his huge financial schemes.
Clark Bryant was in love with Nora.
This was why the Camerons had asked him to join their August house party at Dalvey,
And why he had accepted.
It had occurred to Nora this was the case,
But as of yet,
She had never troubled to think the situation over seriously.
She liked Clark Bryant well enough,
But at that moment he was in the way.
She did not want to take him over to Raycott,
Just why she could not have explained,
But there was no snobbish shame of her humble home.
But he didn't belong there,
He was an alien,
And she wished to go back to it for the first time alone.
At the boathouse,
Davy launched the small sailboat,
And Nora took the tiller.
She knew every inch of the harbour.
As the sail filled before the wind,
And the boat sprang across the up-curling waves,
Nora's brief sullenness fell away.
She no longer resented Clark Bryant.
She forgot he was even there.
He was no more to her than the mast by which he stood.
The spell of the sea and the wind surged into her heart,
And filled it with wild happiness and measureless content.
Over yonder,
Where the lights gleamed on the darkening shore,
Under the high sprung arch of pale golden sky,
Was home.
How the wind whistled to welcome her back.
Clark Bryant watched her,
Understanding at once he was nothing to her,
He had no part or lot in her heart.
How lovely and desirable she was,
He thought.
He had never seen her look so beautiful.
The shawl had slipped down to her shoulders,
And her head rose out of it,
Like a magnificent flower out of a crimson.
The masses of her black hair lifted from her face in the rush of the wind,
And swayed back again like rich shadows.
Her lips were stung scarlet with the sea's sharp cresses,
And her eyes,
Large and splendid,
Looked past him,
Unseeing to the harbour lights of Raycott.
When they swung in by the wharf,
Nora sprang from the boat before Bryant had time to moor it.
Pausing for an instant,
She called down,
Don't wait for me,
I'll not go back tonight.
Then she caught her shawl round her head,
And almost ran up the wharf and along the shore.
In the Shelley kitchen the family were gathered around the table when the door was flung open and Nora stood on the threshold.
For a moment they gazed at her as at an apparition.
They had not known the precise day of her coming,
And were not aware of the Cameron's arrival at Dalvey.
It's the girl herself,
It's Nora!
Said old Nathan,
Rising from his bench.
Mother!
Cried Nora,
And she ran across the room and buried her face in her mother's breast,
Sobbing.
When the news spread,
The Raycott people crowded in to see Nora until the house was full.
They spent a noisy,
Merry,
Whole-hearted evening of the old sort,
Where the men smoked and most of the women knitted while they talked.
They were pleased to find that Nora did not put on any airs.
Old Jonas Myers bluntly told her he didn't see as her year among rich folks had done her much good after all.
You're just the same as when you went away,
He said.
I haven't made much of a fine lady of you.
Folks here thought you'd be something wonderful.
Nora laughed.
She was glad they did not find her changed.
Nora sat by her mother and was happy now,
But as the evening wore away she grew very quiet,
And watched the door with something piteous in her eyes.
Old Nathan noticed it and thought she was tired.
He gave the curious neighbours a good-natured hint,
And they presently withdrew.
When they had all gone,
Nora went out to the door alone.
The wind had died down and the shore,
Gemmed with its twinkling lights,
Was very still.
The moon was rising and the harbour was a tossing expanse of silver waves.
The mellow light fell on a tall figure lurking at the angle of the road that led past the shelly cottage.
Nora saw and recognised it.
She threw down the sandy slope with outstretched hands.
Rob,
She called.
Oh Rob,
I've been looking for you all the evening.
Every time there was a step I said to myself,
That's him now,
And when the door opened to let in another,
My heart died within me.
I dare not even ask after you for fear of what they might tell.
Why didn't you come?
I didn't know that I'd be welcome,
He whispered.
He held her close to him.
I'd been hanging about thinking to get a glimpse of you unbeknown.
I thought maybe you wouldn't want to see me tonight.
Not want to see you?
This evening at Delvey,
When I looked across to Raycoat,
It was you I thought of.
I thought of you even before Mother.
She drew back and looked at him with her soul in her eyes.
All the reserve of womanhood had fallen away from her in the inrush of emotion.
For the moment she was a child again,
Telling out her thoughts with a child's frankness.
I've been in a dream this past year,
A lovely dream.
But it was only a dream after all.
And now I've wakened and you are part of the awakening.
The best part.
To think I never knew before.
Knew what,
My girl?
Rob had her close against his heart.
The breath of her lips mingled with his,
But he would not kiss her yet.
That I loved you,
She whispered back.
You were all the world to me,
Rob.
I belonged to you in the sea,
But I never knew it until I crossed the harbour tonight.
Then it all came to me at once like a flood of understanding.
I knew I could never go away again,
That I must stay here forever where I could hear that call of wind and waves.
The new life was good,
But it did not go deep enough.
And when you did not come,
I knew what was in my heart was you,
Only you.
That night,
Nora lay beside her sisters in the tiny room that looked out onto the harbour.
The younger girls slept soundly,
But Nora kept awake to listen to the laughter of the wind outside.
They will think me ungrateful and fickle,
She sighed.
The Camerons don't even know I can't help it.
They will never understand.
Nor did they.
When Nora told them she was going back to Raycoat,
They laughed at her kindly at first,
Treating it as the passing whim of a homesick girl.
And later,
When they came to understand she meant it,
They were grieved and angry.
They appealed to Nathan Shelley finally,
But he refused to say anything.
It can't be altered.
He told them.
The C's called her and she'll listen to now tells.
I'm sorry enough for the girl's own sake.
It would have been better for her if she could have cut loose from it all and lived your life,
I dare say.
But you made a fair trial and it's of no use.
I know what's in her heart.
It was in mine once.
I'll say no word of repute to her.
Nora cried bitterly after she had gone.
But there were no tears in her eyes that night when she walked out onto the shore with Rob Fletcher.
The wind whistled around them and the stars came out in the great ebony dome of the sky over the harbour.
Laughter and song of the fishing folk were behind them and the deep solemn call of the sea before.
Over the harbour gleamed the score of lights at Dalvey.
Rob looked from them to Nora.
Do you think you'll ever regret your life,
My girl?
He said.
Never,
Rob.
It seems to me now like a beautiful garment put on for a holiday and worn easily and pleasantly for a time.
But I've put it off now and I will put on workday clothes again.
It's only a week since I left Dalvey but it seems a long time ago.
Listen to the wind,
Rob.
It's singing of the good days to be for you and me.
Then Rob Fletcher bent over and kissed her and said to Nora softly of all in the world you are my own dear lass.
