27
“I am glad you come here no more. I see that you judge the honour and fulness of my heart by the infidelity and emptiness of your own. Go, sir, and remember, you discard not me––I discard you.”
Thus speaking she passed him haughtily, and he put out his hand as if to detain her, but she gathered her drapery close and so left him. Mr. Tresham heard her footsteps and softly opened the door of his library. “Come in here, Elizabeth,” he said with some tenderness.
“I have seen him.”
“And he brought you the news of his own dishonour. Let him go. He is as weak as a bent flax-stalk, and to be weak is to be wicked. Bury your disappointment in your heart, do not even tell Denas––girls talk to their mothers and mothers talk to all and sundry. Turn your face to Burrell Court now––it is a fair fortune.”
“And it may be a good thing for poor Roland.”
“It may. A respectable position and a certain income is often salvation for a man. Write to Mr. Burrell at once, and send the letter by the gardener.”
That was an easy direction to give, but Elizabeth did not find it easy to carry out. She wrote half-a-dozen letters, and none of them was satisfactory. So she finally asked her lover to call and see her at seven o’clock that evening. And it was very natural that, in the stress of such an important decision, the visit of Denas and their intention of dressing the altar should be forgotten. It was a kind of unpleasant surprise to her when Denas came and she remembered the obligation. Of course she could28not now refuse to fulfil it. The offering was surely to God, and no relation between herself and the rector could interfere with it. But it was a great trial. She said she had a headache, and perhaps that complaint as well as any other defined the hurt and shock she had received.
Denas wondered at Elizabeth’s want of interest. She did not superintend as usual the cutting of the flowers, so carefully nursed and saved for this occasion; and though she went to the church with Denas and really did her best to make a heart offering with her Easter wreaths, the effort was evident. Her work lacked the joyous enthusiasm which had always distinguished Elizabeth’s church duties.
The rector pointedly ignored her, and she felt keenly the curious, and in some cases the not kindly, glances of the other Easter handmaidens. In such celebrations she had always been put first; she was now last––rather, she was nowhere. It would have been hard to bear had she not known what a triumph she held in abeyance. For Mr. Burrell was the patron of St. Penfer’s church; he had given its fine chime of bells and renovated its ancient pews of black oak. The new organ had been his last Christmas gift to the parish, and out of his purse mainly had come the new school buildings. The rector might ignore Miss Tresham, but she smiled to herself when she reflected on the salaams he would yet make to Mrs. Robert Burrell.
Now, Denas was not more prudent than young girls usually are. She saw that there was trouble, and she spoke of it. She saw Elizabeth was slighted,29and she resented it. It was but natural under such circumstances that the church duty was made as short as possible; and it was just as natural that Elizabeth should endeavour to restore her self-respect by a confidential revelation of the great matrimonial offer she had received. And perhaps she did nothing unwomanly in leaving Denas freedom to suppose the rector’s insolent indifference the fruit of his jealousy and disappointment.
In the midst of these pleasant confidences Roland unexpectedly entered. He had written positively that he was not coming. And then here he was. “I thought I could not borrow for the trip, but I managed it,” he said with the bland satisfaction of a man who feels that he has accomplished a praiseworthy action. For once Elizabeth was not quite pleased at his visit. She would rather it had not occurred at such an important crisis of her life. She was somewhat afraid of Roland’s enthusiasms and rapid friendships, and it was not unlikely that his first conception of Mr. Burrell’s alliance would be “a good person to borrow money from.”
Also she wished time to dress herself carefully and solitude to get the inner woman under control. After five o’clock Denas and Roland were both in her way. They were at the piano singing as complacently and deliberately as if the coming of her future husband was an event that could slip into and fit into any phase of ordinary life. It was a strange, wonderful thing to her, something so sacred and personal she could not bear to think of discussing it while Roland laughed and Denas sang. It30was not an every-day event and she would not have it made one.
She knew her father would not interfere, and she knew one way in which to rid herself of Denas and Roland. Naturally she took it. A little after six she said: “I have a headache, Roland, and shall not walk to-night. Will you take Denas safely down the cliff?”
Roland was delighted, and Denas was no more afraid of the gay fellow than the moth is of the candle. She was pleasantly excited by the idea of a walk all alone with Roland. She wondered what he would say to her: if he would venture to give voice to the inarticulate love-making of the last two years––to all that he had looked when she sang to him––to all that he meant by the soft, prolonged pressure of her hand and by that one sweet stolen kiss which he had claimed for Christmas’ sake.
They walked a little apart and very silently until they came into the glades of the cliff-breast. Then, suddenly, without word or warning, Roland took Denas in his arms and kissed her. “Denas! sweet Denas!” he cried, and the wrong was so quickly, so impulsively committed that for a moment Denas was passive under it. Then with flaming cheeks she freed herself from his embrace. “Mr. Tresham, you must go back,” she said. “I can walk no further with you. Why were you so rude to me?”
“I am not rude, Denas, and I will not go back. After waiting two years for this opportunity, do you think I will give it up? And I will not let you call me Mr. Tresham. To you I am Roland. Say it31here in my arms, dear, lovely Denas! Do not turn away from me. You cannot go back without telling Elizabeth, and I swear you shall not go forward until you forgive me. Come, Denas, sweet, forgive me!” He held her hands, he kissed her hands, and would not release the girl, who, as she listened to his rapid, eager pleading, became more and more disposed to tenderness. He was telling the story no one could better tell than Roland Tresham. His eyes, his lips, his smile, his caressing attitudes, all went with his eager words, his enthusiastic admiration, his passionate assertion of his long-hidden affection.
And everything was in his favour. The lovely spring eve, the mystical twilight, the mellow flutings of the blackbirds and the vesper thrushes piping nothing new or strange, only the sweet old tune of love, the lift of the hills, the soft trinkling of hidden brooks, the scent of violets at their feet and of the fresh leaves above them––all the magic of the young year and of young love made the delicious story Roland had been longing to tell and the innocent heart of Denas fearing and longing to hear very easy to interpret––very easy to understand.
Listening, and then refusing to listen; yielding a little, and then drawing back again, Denas nevertheless heard Roland’s whole sweet confession. She was taught to believe that he had loved her from their first meeting; taught to believe and half-made to acknowledge that she had not been indifferent to him. She was under almost irresistible influences, and she did not think of others which might have counteracted them. Even Elizabeth’s revelation32to her of her own splendid matrimonial hopes was favourable to Roland’s arguments; for if it was a thing for congratulating and rejoicing that Elizabeth should marry a man so much richer than herself, where was it wrong for Denas to love one supposed to be socially and financially her superior?
Before they were half-way to the shingle Roland felt that he had won. The conviction gave him a new kind of power––the power all women delight to acknowledge; the sweet dictation, the loving tyranny that claims every thought of the beloved. Roland told Denas she must not dare to remember anyone but him; he would feel it and know it if she did. She promised this readily. She must not tell Elizabeth. Elizabeth was unreasonable, she was even jealous of everything concerning her brother; she would have a hundred objections; she would influence his father unfavourably; she would do all she could to prevent their seeing each other, etc., etc. And where a man pleads, one woman is readily persuaded against another. But Denas was much harder to persuade where the article of secrecy touched her father and mother. Her conscience, uneasy for some time, told her positively at this point that deception was wicked and dangerous. Roland could not win from her a promise in this direction. But he was not afraid––he was sure he could trust to her love and her desire to please him.
One of the cruellest things about a wrong love is that it delights in tangles and hidden ways; that it teaches and practises deceit from its first inception; that its earliest efforts are toward destroying33all older and more sacred attachments. Roland was not willing to take the hand of Denas in the face of the world and say: “This is my beloved wife.” Yet for the secret pleasure of his secret love, he expected Denas to wrong father-love and mother-love and to deceive day by day the friend and the companion who had been so kind and so fairly loyal to her.
No wonder John Penelles hated him instinctively. John’s soul needed but a glimpse of the lovers sauntering down the narrow cliff-path to apprehend the beginning of sorrows. Instantaneous as the glimpse was, it explained to him the restless, angry, fearful feeling that had driven him from his own cottage to the place appointed by destiny for the revelation of his child’s danger and of his own admonition.
He was glad that he had obeyed the spiritual order; whatever power had warned him had done him service. It is true the fond assurances of Denas had somewhat pacified his suspicions, but he was not altogether satisfied. When Denas declared that Roland had not made love to her, John felt certain that the girl was in some measure deceiving him––perhaps deceiving herself; for he could not imagine her to be guilty of a deliberate lie. Alas! lying is the vital air of secret love, and a girl must needs lie who hides from her parents the object and the course of her affections. Still, when he thought of her arms around his neck, of her cheek against his cheek, of her assertion that “Denas loved no one better than her father and mother,” he felt it a kind of disloyalty to his child to altogether doubt her.34He believed that Denas believed in herself. Well, then, he must try and trust her as far and as long as it was possible.
And Joan trusted her daughter––she scouted the idea of Denas doing anything that was outside her mother’s approval. She told John that his fear was nothing but the natural conceit of men; they thought a woman could not be with one of their sex and not be ready to sacrifice her own life and the lives of all her kinsfolk for him. “It be such puddling folly to start with,” she said indignantly; “talking about Denas being false to her father and mother! ’Tis a doleful, dismal, ghastly bit of cowardice, John. Dreadful! aw, dreadful!”
Then John was silent, but he communed with his own heart. Joan had not seen Roland and Denas as he had seen them; no one had troubled Joan as he had been troubled. For something often gives to a loving heart a kind of prescience, when it may be used for wise and saving ends; and John Penelles divined the angry trend of Roland’s thoughts, though it was impossible for him to anticipate the special form that trend would take.
Roland had indeed been made furiously angry at the interference between himself and Denas. “I spoke pleasantly to the old fisher, and he was as rude as could be. Rude to me! Jove! I’ll teach him the value of good manners to his betters.”
He sat down on a lichen-covered rock, lit a cigar, and began to think. His personal dignity had been deeply wounded; his pride of petty caste trod upon. He, a banker’s son, had been snubbed by a common35fisherman! “He took Denas from me as if I was going to kill her, body and soul. He deserves all he suspected me of.” And as these and similar thoughts passed through Roland’s mind he was not at all handsome; his face looked dark and drawn and marked all over with the characters sin writes through long late hours of selfish revelry and riot.
But however his angry thoughts wandered, they always came back to the slight of himself personally––to the failure of Penelles to appreciate the honour he was doing him in wooing his daughter. And if the devil wishes to enter easily a man or a woman, he finds no door so wide and so easy of access as the door of wounded vanity and wounded self-esteem.
Roland’s first impulse was to make Denas pay her father’s debt. “I will never speak to her again. Common little fisher-girl! I will teach her that gentlemen are to be used like gentlemen. Why did she not speak up to her father? She stood there without a word and let him snub me. The idea!” These exclamations were, however, only the quick, unreasoning passion of the animal; when Roland had calmed himself with tobacco, he felt how primitive and foolish they were. His reflections were then of a different character; they began to flow steadily into a channel they had often wandered in, though hitherto without distinct purpose.
“After all, I like the girl. She has a kind of nixie, tantalising, bewitching charm that would drive a crowd mad. She has a fresh, sympathetic36voice, penetrating, too, as a clarion. Her folk-songs and her sea-songs go down to the bottom of a man’s heart and into every corner of it. Now, if I could get her to London and have her taught how to manage her voice and face and person, if I had her taught how to dance––Jove! there is a fortune in it! Dressed in a fancy fisher costume, singing the casting songs and the boat songs––the calls and takes she knows so well––why, she would make a gas-lit theatre seem like the great ocean, and men would see the white-sailed ships go marching by, and the fishing cobbles, and the wide nets full of gleaming fish, and––and, by Jove! they would go frantic with delight. They would be at her feet. She would be the idol of London. She would sing full pockets empty. I should have all my desires, and now I have so few of them. What a prospect! But I’ll reach it––I’ll reach it, and all the fishers in St. Penfer’s shall not hinder me!”
He thought his plans over again, and then it was dark and he rose up to return home; but as he shook himself into the proper fit of his clothes and settled his hat at the correct angle, he laughed vauntingly and said:
“I shall be even with you, John Penelles, before next Easter. I was not good enough for Denas, was I not? Well, she is going to work for me and for my pleasure and profit, John Penelles; going to make money for me to spend, John Penelles. My beautiful fisher-maid! I dare be bound she is dreaming of me now. Women! women! women! What dear little fools they are, to be sure!”
37
He was quite excited and quite good-tempered now. A new plan was like a new fortune to Roland. He never took into consideration the contrariness of circumstances and of opposing human elements. His plans were perfect from his own standpoint; the standpoint of other people was out of his consideration. Never before had he conceived so clever a scheme for getting a livelihood made for him. There was really nobody but Denas to interfere with any of his arrangements, and Denas was under his control and could be made more so. This night he felt positive that he had “hit the very thing at last.”
He reached home late, but in exuberant spirits. Elizabeth was waiting for him. She was beautifully dressed, and in a moment he saw upon her hand the flash of large and perfect diamonds. “They were mother’s, I suppose, and I have as much right––yes, more right––to them than she has.” This was his first thought, but he did not express it. There was an air about Elizabeth that was quite new to him; he was curious and full of expectation as he seated himself beside her. She shook her head in a reproving manner.
“You have been making love to Denas. I see it in your eyes, Roland. And you promised me you never would.”
“Upon my honour, Elizabeth. We met the old fisher Penelles a long way up the cliff and he took her from me. Talking of making love––pray, what have you been doing? I thought you had a headache.”
38
“Roland, I am going to be married––June the 11th.”
“Is that your engagement ring?”
“It is. Mr. Burrell says it was his mother’s engagement ring; but, then, gems are all second-hand––a hundred-hand––a thousand-hand for that.”
“Burrell! You take my breath away! Burrell! The man who has a bank in Threadneedle Street?”
“The same.”
“Good gracious, Elizabeth! You have made all our fortunes! You noble girl! I did not know he was thinking of you.”
“He was waiting for me. Destiny, Roland. But he is a noble-hearted man, and he loves me and I intend to be a good wife to him. I do indeed. He is going to make a great settlement on me, and I shall have an income of my own from it––all my own, to do what I like with.”
“Elizabeth, dear, I always have loved you better than anything else in the world. You will not forget me now, will you, dear?”
“Why, Roland, I thought of you when I accepted Mr. Burrell. When I am married, Roland, I shall manage things for you as you wish them, I daresay. The man loves me so much that I could get not the half, but the whole of his kingdom from him.”
“You are the dearest, noblest sister in the world.”
“I could not bear to go to sleep without making you as happy as myself. Now, Roland, there is something you must not do, and that is, have any love nonsense with Denas Penelles. At Burrell Court you will meet rich girls and girls of good39birth, and your only chance is in a rich marriage––you know it is, Roland.”
“Oh, I do not quite think that, Elizabeth.”
“Roland, you know it. How many situations have you had and lost? If Mr. Burrell gave you a desk in his bank to-morrow, you would hand back its key before my wedding-day.”
“Perhaps; but there are other ways.”
“None for you but a rich marriage. Every other way supposes work, and you will not work. You know you will not.”
“I have some objections.”
“Now, any trouble with a fisherman’s daughter would be bad every way. There is the dislike rich girls have for low amours, and, worse still, the dreadfully Cornish habit fishers have of standing together. If you offend John Penelles or wrong him in the least, you offend and wrong every man in St. Penfer fishing quarter. Do not snap your fingers so scornfully, Roland; you would be no match for a banded enmity like that.”
“All this about Denas?”
“Yes; all this about Denas. The girl is a vain little thing, but I do not want to see her breaking her heart about your handsome face.”
She drew the handsome face down to her lips and kissed it; and Roland used every charm he possessed in order to deepen his influence over his going-to-be-rich sister. He was already making plain and straight his paths for a certain supremacy at Burrell Court. He was already feeling that a good deal of Robert Burrell’s money would come, through Elizabeth’s40hands, into his pocket. That would be a perfectly legitimate course for it to take. Why should not a loving sister help a loving brother?
And oh, the pity of it! While brother and sister talked only of themselves, Robert Burrell sat silent and happy in his study, planning magnificent generosities for his bride; thinking of her youth, of her innocence, her ignorance of fashionable society, of her affection for and her loyalty to her father and brother, and loving her with all his great honest heart for these very things. And Denas lay dreaming of Roland. And Roland, even while he was talking with Elizabeth about Burrell Court, was holding fast to his intention to degrade Denas. For the singing, dancing, fiddling life which he was to lead with her suited his tastes exactly; he felt it would be the absolutely necessary alterative to the wealthy decorum of Burrell Court.
O Love! what cruelties are done in thy name! We think of thee as coming with a rose, and a song, and a smile. Nay, but the Calydonian Maidens were right when they cried bitterly: “Death should have risen with Love, and Grief, and visible Fear; and there should have been heard a voice of lamentation and mourning, as of many in prison.”[2]
41CHAPTER III.THE COTTAGE BY THE SEA.
“O blesséd sounds of wiser lifeContented with its day,How ye rebuke the inner strifeThat wears the soul away.”
“O blesséd sounds of wiser lifeContented with its day,How ye rebuke the inner strifeThat wears the soul away.”
“O blesséd sounds of wiser life
Contented with its day,
How ye rebuke the inner strife
That wears the soul away.”
“The Eden we live in is our own heart,And the first thing we do of our free choiceIs sure to be sin.”––Festus.
“The Eden we live in is our own heart,And the first thing we do of our free choiceIs sure to be sin.”––Festus.
“The Eden we live in is our own heart,
And the first thing we do of our free choice
Is sure to be sin.”
––Festus.
John Penelleswas one of those strong religious characters whose minds no questions disturb, whose spiritual aspirations are never put out of breath. He had not yet been a yoke-fellow with sorrow. Hard work, the cruelty of the elements, the self-denials of poverty, these things he had known; but love had never smitten him across the heart.
When he rose that Easter Sunday he rose singing. He sang as he put on his chapel broadcloth; he was trying over the different metres and the Easter anthem as he walked about the sanded floor of his cottage, and thought over the heads of his sermon. For he was to preach that night in the little chapel of St. Swer, a fishing hamlet four miles to the northward; indeed, John preached very often,42being a local preacher in the circuit of St. Penfer, and rather famous for his ready, short sermons, full of the breath of the sea and of the savour of the fisher’s life upon it.
Denas had gone to a neighbouring farm for milk. He heard her quick step on the shingle, and he stood still in the middle of the floor to meet her. She had on a short dress of pink calico and a square of blue-and-white-plaided flannel thrown over her head. She came in like the breath of the spring Sabbath. Her face was rosy, her lovely lips slightly apart, her blue eyes dewy and soft and bright and brimming with love. She lifted her face to her father’s face, and he forgot in a moment all his fears. He saw only Denas, and not any of her faults; if she had faults, he buried them that moment in his love, and they were all put out of memory.
Roland and the Treshams were not spoken of. John and Joan both had the fisher’s dislike to name a person or a thing they considered unlucky or unpleasant. “If you name evil you do call evil” was their simple creed; and it saved many a household worry. They sat down to their breakfast of tea, and fresh fish, and white loaf, and the wide-open door let in the sea wind, and the sea smell, and the soft murmur of the turning tide. John’s heart was full of holy joy; he could feel it singing: “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” And though he was only a poor Cornish fisher, he was sure that the world was a very good world and that life was well worth the living.
“Joan, my dear,” he said, “the Bible do tell us43that there shall be a new earth. Can it be a sweeter one than this is?”
“Aw, John, it may be a sight better, for we be promised ‘there shall be no sea there,’ thank God! no freezing, drowning men and no weeping wives. I do think of that when you are out in the frost and storm, John, and the thought be heaven itself.”
“My dear, the sea be God’s own highway. There be wonders by the sea. Was not St. John sent to the sea-side for the Revelations? ’Twas there he heard the angels, whose voices were like the sound of many waters. Heaven will be wonderful! wonderful! if it do make us forget the sea. Aw, my dear Joan, ’twill be something added to this earth, not something taken away, and the good thing added will make both the sea and the ‘bounds of the everlasting hills’ to be blessed.”
“John, who told you that? And if the cruel, hungry, awful sea is not to be taken away, nor yet the ‘everlasting hills,’ what will make it a new earth?”
“God’s tabernacle will be in it. Aw, my dear, that will make everything new––sea and land, men and women; and then there will be no more tears. My dear, when I think of that I love this old world, not only for what it is, but also for what it is going to be.”
“Father, you are preaching and not eating your breakfast; and I want to get breakfast over and the cups washed, for I have to dress myself yet, and a new dress to put on, too,” and Denas smiled and nodded and touched her father’s big hand with44her small one, and then John smiled back, and with a mighty purpose began to eat his fish and bread and drink his tea.
The whole day took its colour from this happy beginning. In after-years John often spoke of that Easter Sabbath; of their quiet walk all together up the cliff to St. Penfer Chapel; of the singing, and the sermon, and the Sunday-school in the afternoon for the fisher children; of the walk to St. Swer with Denas by his side and the walk back, singing all the way home; of the nice supper ready for them, and how they had eaten and talked till the late moon made a band of light across the table, and John said hurriedly:
“Well, there now! The tide will be calling me before I do have time to get sleep in my eyes.”
Then Joan rose quickly and Denas began to put away the bread and cheese and milk, and though none recognised the fact at the time, the old life passed away for ever when the three rose from that midnight supper.
Yet for several days afterward nothing seemed to be changed. John went to his fishing and had unusual good fortune; and Joan and Denas were busy mending nets and watching the spring bleaching. It was the duty of Denas to take the house linen to some level grassy spot on the cliff-breast and water and watch it whiten in the sunshine. Monday she had gone to this duty with a vague hope that Roland would seek her out. She watched all day for him. She knew that she was looking pretty, and she felt that her employment was picturesque.
45
As she stood over the breadths of damask, with the water-can making mimic rain upon them, she was well aware that all her surroundings added charm to her charm. The soft winds blowing her hair and her pink skirt; the green leaves whispering above and around her; the rippling of the brook running down the hillside––all these things belonged as much to her as the frame belongs to the picture. Why did not Roland come to see her thus? Was he afraid for the words he had said to her? Were they not true words? Did he intend, by ignoring them, to teach her that he had only been playing with her vanity and her credulity?
Tuesday was too wet and blowy to spread the linen, and Denas felt the morning insufferably long and tedious. Her father, who had been on the sea all night, dozed in his big chair on the hearthstone. Joan was silent, and went about her duties in a tiptoeing way that was very fretful to the impatience of Denas. Denas herself was knitting a guernsey, and as she sat counting the stitches Tristram Penrose came to the door and, after a moment’s pause, spoke to her. He was a fine young fellow with an open-air look on his brown face and an open-love look in his brown eyes.
“My dear Denas,” he said, “is your father in?”
“Tris, who gave you license to call me dear? and my father is asleep by the fireside.”
“Aw, then, the One who gave me license to live gave me the license to love; and dear you be and dear you always will be to Tris Penrose. The word may be shut in my heart or I may say it in46your ear, Denas; ’tis all the same; dear you be and dear you always will be.”
She shrugged her shoulders petulantly, and yet could not resist the merry up-glance which she knew went straight to the big fellow’s heart. Then she began to fold up her knitting. While Tris was talking to her father, she would ask for permission to go and see Elizabeth. While Tris was present, she did not think he would refuse her request, for if he did so she could ask him for reasons and he would not like to give them.
Denas had all the natural diplomacy of a clever woman, and she knew the power of a fond word and a sunny smile. “Father”––is there any fonder word?––“Father, I want to go and see Miss Tresham. She told me a very important secret on Saturday, and I know she was expecting me yesterday to talk it over with her;” then she went close to his side and put her hand on his shoulder and snuggled her cheek in his big beard, and called poor Tris’ soul into his face for the very joy of watching her.
John was not insensible to her charming. He hesitated, and Denas felt the hesitation and met it with a bribe: “You could come up the cliff to meet me before you go to the boats––couldn’t you, father?”
“Nay, my dear, I’ll not need to look for you on the cliff, for you will stay at home, Denas; it rains––it blows.”
“Miss Tresham was expecting me all through yesterday, but it was so fine I took the linen to bleach. She will be so disappointed if I do not come to-day. We have a secret, father––a very particular secret.”
47
It was hard to resist the pretty, pleading, coaxing girl, but John had a strength of will which Denas had never before put to the test.
“My dear girl,” he answered, “if Miss Tresham be longing to talk her secrets to you, she can come to you. There be nothing in the world to hinder her. Here be a free welcome to her.”
“I promised, father.”
“’Tis a pity you did.”
“I must go, father.”
“You must stay at home. ’Twould be like putting my girl through the fire to Baal to send her into the company there be now at Mr. Tresham’s.”
“I care nothing for the company. I want to see Miss Tresham.”
“Now, then, I am in earnest, Denas. You shall not go. Take your knitting and sit down to your own work.”
She lifted her knitting, but she did not lift a stitch. Where there is no positive compulsion the hand is only handmaid to the heart, and it does the work only which the heart wishes. At this hour Denas hated her knitting, and there being no necessity on her to perform it, her hands lay idle upon her lap. After a few minutes’ conversation John went out with Tris Penrose, and then Denas began to cry with anger and disappointment.
“My father has insulted me before Tris Penrose,” she said, “and I will never speak to Tris again. Many a time and oft he has let me go to St. Penfer when it was raining and blowing. He is very cross, cruel cross! Mother, you give me leave––do! I48will tell you a secret. Elizabeth is going to be married, and she wants me to help in getting her things ready. Mother, let me go; it is cruel hard to refuse me!”
The news of an approaching marriage can never be heard by any woman with indifference. Joan stayed her needle and looked at Denas with an eager curiosity.
“’Tis to the rector, I’ll warrant, Denas,” she said.
“No, it is not; but the rector is fine and angry, I can tell you. It was too much for him to speak to Miss Tresham on Saturday afternoon at the church. But won’t he be sorry for his disknowledging her when he knows who is to be the bridegroom? He will, and no mistake.”
“I don’t understand you, Denas. Who is going to marry Miss Tresham? Say the man’s name, and be done with it.”
“’Tis a great secret, mother; but if you will let me go to St. Penfer I will tell you.”
“Aw, my dear, I can live without Miss Tresham’s secrets. And I do know she can’t be having one I would go against your father to hear tell of, not I.”
“Father is unjust and unkind. What have I done, mother?”
“Your father is afraid of that young jackanapes, Roland Tresham, and good reason, too, if all be true that is said to be true.”
“Mr. Roland is a gentleman.”
“Gentleman and gentleman––there be many kinds, and no kind at all for you. You be a fisher’s49daughter, and you must choose a husband of your own sort––none better, thank God! The robin would go to the eagle’s nest, and a poor sad time it had there. Gentlemen marry gentlemen’s daughters, Denas, and if they don’t, all sides do be sorry enough.”
“Am I to go no more to Miss Tresham’s?”
“Not until the young man is back in London.”
“Then I wish he would hurry all and be off.”
“So do I, my dear. I would be glad to hear that he was far away from St. Penfer.”
Joan rose with these words and went out of the room, and Denas knew that for this day also there was no hope of seeing Roland. Her heart was hot with anger, and she began to lay some of the blame upon her lover. He was a man. He could have braved the storm. And there was no open quarrel between her father and himself; it would have been easy enough to make an excuse for calling. Elizabeth might have written a letter to her. Roland might have brought it. Sitting there, she could think of half-a-dozen things which Roland might have accomplished. How long the hours were! How would she ever get the days over? Her mother singing in the curing-shed made her angry. The ticking of the big clock accentuated her nervous irritability, and when John returned silent and with that air about him which indicated the master of the house, Denas felt surely that all was over for the present between her and Roland Tresham.
The night became blustery after John and the men had gone to the fishing, and by midnight there was50a storm. Joan’s white, anxious face was peering through the windows or out of the open door into the black night continually. And the presence of Denas did not comfort her, as it usually did; the mother felt that her child’s thoughts were with strangers, and not with her father out on the stormy sea.
It was ten o’clock next morning before John got home. He had made a little harbour some miles off, and glad to make it, and had been compelled to lay there until daybreak. He was weary and silent. He said it would have gone hard with him had not Tris been at his right hand. Then he looked anxiously at Denas, and when she did not give him a smile or a word, he sat down by the fire much depressed and exhausted. For he saw that his child had a hard, angry heart toward him, and he felt how useless it was to try and explain or justify his dealings with her.
It was now Wednesday, and Denas burned with shame when she thought how readily she had listened to so careless a lover. No word of any kind came from Elizabeth, who indeed was not to blame under the circumstances. Mr. Burrell was much with her; they had a hundred delightful arrangements to make about their marriage and their future housekeeping. And if in these days Elizabeth was a little proud and important and very much interested in her own affairs, she was innocently so. She was only exhibiting the natural parade of a lovely bud spreading itself into a perfect flower.
She had not the slightest intention of being unkind51to Denas; indeed, she looked forward to many pleasant hours with her and to her assistance in all the preparations for her marriage. And Roland had introduced the subject quite as frequently as he felt it to be prudent. Finally Elizabeth had plainly told him that she did not intend to have Denas with her until he returned to London. “I see you so seldom, Roland,” she said, “and we will not have any stranger intermeddling when you are at home.”
“Come, Elizabeth,” he answered, “you are putting up your disapprovals in the shape of compliments. My dear, you are afraid I will fall in love with Denas.”
“I am afraid you will make love to her, which is a very different thing.”
“Do you want Denas here?”
“I shall be glad to have her here. I have a great deal of sewing to do, and she is a perfect and rapid needlewoman.”
“Then go to-morrow and ask her to come. I am off to London to-night. In this world no one has pleasure but he who gives himself some. You were my only pleasure at St. Penfer, and I do not care to share your society with Robert Burrell.”
“I will go and see Denas. I must ask her parents to let her stay with me until my marriage.”
But as Denas did not know of this intention, that weary Wednesday dragged itself away amid rain and storm and household dissatisfaction; but by Thursday morning the elements had blustered their passion away and the world was clear-skied and sunshiny. Not so Denas; she sat in a dark corner52of the room, cross and silent, and answering her father and mother only in monosyllables. John’s heart was greatly troubled by her attitude. He stood leaning against the lintel of the door, watching his boat rocking upon the tide, for he was thinking that until Denas and he were “in” again he had better stop at home.
“I do leave my heart at home, and then I do lose my head at sea;” and with this unsatisfactory thought John turned to his daughter and said softly: “Denas, my dear, ’tis a bright day. Will you have a walk? But there––here be Miss Tresham, I do know it is her.”
Denas rose quickly and looked a moment at the tall, handsome girl picking her way across the pebbly path. Then she threw down her knitting and went to meet her, and Elizabeth was pleased and flattered by her protégée’s complaints and welcomes. “I thought you would never send me a message or a letter,” almost sobbed Denas. “I never hoped you would come. O Elizabeth, how I have longed to see you! Life is so stupid when I cannot come to your house.”
“Why did you not come?”
“Father was afraid of your brother.”
“He was right, Denas. Roland is too gay and thoughtless a young man to be about a pretty girl like you. But he has gone to London, and I do not think he will come back here until near the wedding-day.”
Then they were at the door, and John Penelles welcomed the lady with all the native grace that53springs from a kind heart and from noble instincts which have become principles. “You be right welcome, Miss Tresham,” he said. “My little maid has fret more than she should have done for you. I do say that.”
“I also missed Denas very much. I have no sister, Mr. Penelles, and Denas has been something like one to me. I am come to ask you if she may stay with me until my marriage in June. No one can sew like Denas, and now I can afford to pay her a good deal of money for her work––for her love I give her love. No gold pays for love, does it, sir?”
John was pleased with her frankness. He knew the value of money, he knew also the moral value of letting Denas earn money. He answered with a candour which brushed away all pretences:
“We be all obliged to you, Miss Tresham. We be all glad that Denas should make money so happily. It will help her own wedding and furnishing, whenever God do send her a good man to love her. It be a great honour to Denas to have your love, but there then! your brother is a fine, handsome young man, and––no offence, miss––it would not be a great honour for my little maid to have his love or the likelihood of it––and out of temptation is out of danger, miss, and if so be I do speak plain and bluff, you will not put it down against me, I’ll warrant.”
“I think, Mr. Penelles, that you are quite right. I have felt all you say for two years, and have shielded the honour and the happiness of Denas as54if she was in very deed my sister. Can you not trust her with me now?”
“’Tis a great charge, miss.”
“I am glad to take it. I will keep it for you faithfully.”
“’Tis too much to ask, miss; ’twould be a constant charge, for wrong-doing is often a matter of a few moments, though the repentance for it may last a lifetime.”
“Roland is in London. He went yesterday. I do not expect him to come to St. Penfer again until the wedding. I assure you of this, Mr. Penelles.”
“Then your word for it, Miss Tresham. Take my little maid with you. She be my life, miss. If Denas was hurt any way ’twould be like I got a shot in my backbone; ’twould be as bad for her mother, likewise for poor Tris Penrose.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I am glad to hear there is a lover; Denas never told me of him. Is he good and brave, and handsome and young, and well-to-do?”
“He be all these, and more too; for he do love the ground Denas treads on––he do for sure.”
Denas was in her room putting on her blue merino and her hat, and while she made her small arrangements and talked to her mother, Elizabeth set herself to win the entire confidence of John Penelles. It was not a hard thing to do. Evil and sin had to be present and palpable for John’s honest heart to realize them. And Miss Tresham’s open face, her frank assurances, her straightforward understanding of the position were a pledge John never doubted.
55
Certainly Elizabeth meant all she promised. She was as desirous to prevent any love-making as John Penelles was. And when interest and conscience are in the same mind, people do at least try to keep their promises. Denas went gayly back with her to St. Penfer. It was something to be in Roland’s home; she would hear him spoken of, and she would exchange the monotonous common duties of her own home for the happy bustle and the festive preparations of a house where a fine wedding was to be celebrated.
Her expectations in this respect were more than gratified. Every hour of the day brought something to discuss, to exclaim over, to wonder about, to select, to try on. Notes and flowers, and sweetmeats, and presents of all kinds were continually reminding Elizabeth of her lover; and she grew beautiful and generous in the sunshine of such a magnificent love. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday passed like a happy dream. On Saturday evening Denas was to return home until after the Sabbath. For Saturday night and Sunday were John’s holiday, and a poor one indeed it would be to him without his daughter. Nor was Denas averse to go home. She looked forward to the pleasure of telling her mother everything she had seen and done; she looked forward to going to chapel with her father, and showing a pretty hat and collar and a pair of kid gloves which Elizabeth had given her.
About five o’clock she started down the cliff. Her heart was light in spite of Roland’s silence. Indeed, she had begun to feel a contempt for him56and greater contempt for herself because she had for a moment believed in a man so light of love and so false of heart. Elizabeth’s affairs were full of interest to her. Elizabeth had been so sisterly and kind. She had paid her well and promised her many things that made life seem full of hope to the ambitious fisher-girl. How the birds did sing! How still the green glades were! In that one week of rain and sunshine, how the leaves had grown!
She went gayly forward, humming softly to herself––none of the songs Roland sang with her, but a little love-song Elizabeth had learned from Robert Burrell. Her foot had that spring to its lift and fall that shows there is a young innocent heart above it. In and out among the glades she went, almost as brightly and musically as the brook whose sparkling and darkling course she followed. When but a few hundred yards down the path, someone called her. She thought it was a fancy and went onward, nevertheless feeling a sudden silence and trouble. Immediately she heard footsteps and the rustling swish of parting leaves and branches.
Then she stood still and looked toward the place of disturbance. A moment afterward Roland Tresham was at her side. He took her hand; he said softly, “This way, darling!” and before she could make the slightest resistance he had drawn her into a little glade shut in by large boulders and lofty trees. Then he had his arms around her, and was laughing and talking a thousand sweet, unreasonable things.