120
She rose with such an air of decision and wounded feeling that Roland involuntarily thought of her attitude when Elizabeth offended her. From the position taken at that hour she had never wavered; she was still as angry at Mrs. Burrell as she had been when she left the Court in the first outburst of her indignation. And she was so handsome in her affected indifference and her real indignation that Roland was ready to sacrifice everything rather than lose her. He let all other considerations slip away from him; he vowed that his chief longing, his most passionate desire, was to marry her––to make her his and his only; and that nothing but a chivalric sense of the wrong he might be doing her future had made him hesitate. And then he eloquently praised himself for such a nicety of honour, and tried to make her understand how really noble he had been in his self-denial, and how hard it was for him to be accused of the very thing he was trying to avoid. And he looked so injured, with his beautiful eyes full of tears, that Denas was privately ashamed of herself, and fearful that she had in defence of her modesty gone beyond proper boundaries.
Then the subject of their marriage was frankly discussed. Roland was now honest and earnest enough, and yet Denas felt that the charm of the great question and answer had been lost in considering it. Spontaneity––that subtle element of all that is lovely and enchanting––had flown away at the first suspicion of constraint. Some sweet illusion that had always hung like a halo over this grand121decision evaded her consciousness; the glorious ideal had become a reality and lost all its enchantments in the change.
After a long discussion, it was finally arranged that Roland should meet Denas at a small way-station about four miles distant on the following Monday evening. From there they could take a train to Plymouth, and at Plymouth there was a Wesleyan minister whom Denas had seen and who she felt sure would marry them. From Plymouth to Exeter, Salisbury, and London was a straight road, and yet one which had many asides and not too easy to follow; though as to any fear of interruptions, they were hardly worth considering. Denas would leave her home as usual on Monday morning, and her parents would have no expectation of seeing her until the following Friday night. By that time she would be settled in London––she would have been Roland’s wife for nearly four days.
These arrangements were made on Friday night, and on the following morning Denas went home very early. As she took the cliff-road she felt that the spirit of change had entered into her heart and her imagination. The familiar path had become monotonously dreary; she had a kind of pity for the people who had not her hope of a speedy escape from it. The desolate winter beach, the lonely boats, the closed cottages––how inexorably common they looked! She felt that there must be something in the world better for her than such mean poverty. Roland’s words had indeed induced this utter weariness and contempt for the conditions of122her life, but the conditions themselves were thus made to give the most eloquent sanction to his advice and entreaties.
And when a girl has set her face toward a wrong road, nothing is sadder in life than the general certainty there is that every small event will urge her forward on it. Usually the home-coming of Denas was watched for and seen afar off, and some special dainty was simmering on the hob for her refreshment. There was all the pleasant flurry that belongs to love’s warm welcome. But she had delayed her return in order to spend the evening with Roland, and the environments of the morning had not the same air of easy happiness that attaches itself to the evening hours.
Joan was elbow-deep in her week’s cleaning and baking. John had the uncomfortable feeling of a man who knows himself in the way. He had only loitered around in order to see Denas and be sure that all was well with his girl. Then he was a trifle disappointed that she had not brought him his weekly paper. He went silently off to the boats, and Denas was annoyed and reproved by his patient look of disappointment. Women who are cleaning and baking are often, what is called by people less troublesomely employed, cross. Denas was sure her mother was cross and a little unreasonable. She had not time to listen to the village gossip; “it would keep till evening,” she said.
Then she bid Denas hurry up and get her father’s heavy guernsey mended and his bottle of water filled, ready for the boat. “They be going out on123the noon ebb,” she said, “and back with the midnight tide, and so take thought for the Sabbath; for your father, he do have to preach over to Pendree to-morrow, and the sermon more on his mind than the fishing––God help us!”
“Will father expect me to walk with him to Pendree to-morrow, mother? It is too far; I cannot walk so far.”
“Will he expect you? Not as I know by, Denas––if you don’t want to go. There be girls as would busy all to do so. But there! it is easy seen you are neither fatherish or motherish these days.”
“I wish father was rich enough to stay at home and never go to sea again.”
“That be a bit of nonsense! Your father has had a taking to the sea all his life; and he never could abide to be boxed up on land. Aw, my dear, John Penelles is a busker of a fisherman! The storm never yet did blow that down-daunted him! Tris says it is a great thing to see your father stand smiling by the wheel when the lightning be flying all across the elements and the big waves be threatening moment by moment to make a mouthful of the boat. That be the Penelles’ way, my dear; they come from a good oldhaveage;[3]but there, then, it be whist poor speed we make when our tongues tire our hands.”
“’Tis like a storm as it can be, mother.”
“Aw, then, a young girl should say brave words or no words at all. ’Tis not your work to forespeak bad weather, and I wish you wouldn’t do it, Denas; I do for sure.”
124
In an hour John came back and had a mouthful of meat and bread, but he was hurried and anxious, and said he had not come yet to his meat-list and would be off about his business. Then Joan asked him concerning the weather, and he answered:
“The gulls do fly high, and that do mean a breeze; but there be no danger until they fly inland. The boats will be back before midnight, my dear.”
“If the wind do let them, John. Denas says it be on its contrary old ways again.”
“My old dear, we be safest when the storm-winds blow; for then God do be keeping the lookout for us. Joan, my wife, ’tis not your business to be looking after the wind, nor mine either; for just as long as John Penelles trusts his boat to the Great Pilot, it is sure and certain to come into harbour right side up. Now, my dear, give me a big jug of milk, with a little boiling water in it to take off the edge of the cold, and then I’ll away for the gray fish––if so be God fills the net on either side the boat for us.”
“Hark, father! The wind has turned to a north-easter––a bad wind on this coast.”
“Not it, Denas. What was it you read me in that story paper? Some verses by a great and good man who have been in a stiff north-easter, or else he never could have got the true grip of it:
“‘Welcome, wild north-easter!Come, and strong within usStir the seaman’s blood,Bracing brain and sinew;Come, thou wind of God!’”
“‘Welcome, wild north-easter!Come, and strong within usStir the seaman’s blood,Bracing brain and sinew;Come, thou wind of God!’”
“‘Welcome, wild north-easter!
Come, and strong within us
Stir the seaman’s blood,
Bracing brain and sinew;
Come, thou wind of God!’”
125
“That is not right, and that is not the whole of it, father.”
“Aw, ’tis enough, my dear; all that the soul wants, the memory can hold to––’tis enough. Good-bye, and God’s keeping.”
He drank his warm milk, buttoned close his pilot coat, and went off toward the boats. Denas had no fear for him, but Joan had not learned trust from her husband’s trust; the iron ring of the wind, the black sea, the wild sky with its tattered remnants of clouds, made her full of apprehension. She hurried her work and was silent over it; while Denas sat in the little window sewing, and occasionally letting her eyes wander outward over the lonely beach and the homely “cob” cottages of the fishers.
It was a solitary, lonesome, dreary-looking spot on that bleak winter day; and life inside those tiny houses was restricted and full of limitations. Denas thought of them all, but she weighed and measured the life without taking into account the love that sat on each hearthstone––the love that turned the simple houses into homes and the plain, hard-working men into husbands and sons and brothers and lovers and saw that they were good men and brave heroes in spite of their poverty. Love would have altered her estimate, but she did not ask love to count with her. She only thought: “If I did not know of a better life, of a life full of pleasure and change, I might go and live with Tris and dree my days out with him; but I am now too wise to be so easily satisfied. I want a house finer than Elizabeth’s; I want grand dresses, and126plenty of servants, and a carriage; and Roland says all these things are in my voice. Besides, I am far too pretty to be a fisherman’s wife and mend guernseys, and make nets, and bake fish-pies every day in the year.”
Far too pretty! After all, this was the deepest thought in her foolish heart. At first, Roland’s pictures of her in picturesque costume, singing to enthusiastic crowds, had rather terrified her; but she had let the idea enter her mind, it had become familiar, then alluring, and finally a delightful dream. She occupied many hours in devising costumes, in imagining herself in their colours and forms, and in considering how the homage she would receive would be most nobly borne as it affected Roland. Of course she would throw all at his feet––all the admiration, all the love, all the gold that came to her.
She looked at the grave-faced, preoccupied mother and wished she could talk with her about her hopes. Roland had expressed himself as greatly hurt by this inability. “Most mothers, Denas,” he said, “would be only too happy to anticipate such a prospect for their daughter, and you ought to have had a mother’s sympathy and help at this great epoch of your life. Poor girl! it is too bad that you are obliged to bear the whole weight of such a movement yourself!”
So Denas looked at her mother, and felt aggrieved by the strict creed which ruled her life. Methodists were so very narrow. She remembered her father’s anger at a mere proposal of Miss Tresham127to take Denas to a theatre with her. She knew that he believed a theatre to be the open door to hell; and that the mere idea of men and women, either with souls saved or souls to be saved, dancing, filled him with shame and anger. Yet she was going to sing in a theatre if possible; and Roland had said a great deal about the fisher dances of various countries and how effective they would be with the songs.
At first she had refused to tolerate the idea; she could not imagine herself dancing to amuse a crowd of strangers––dancing for money. She thought of Herodias dancing the Baptist’s head off, and she said solemnly to Roland, and with the utmost sincerity, that she dared not dance. It was the broad road to perdition. Roland had not cared to argue with such a prejudice. He knew well that the dancing would follow the public singing, as naturally as the singing followed the professional orchestra. But he said then, as he said frequently afterward: “It is such a pity, Denas, you have not a mother you can advise with and who could help and encourage you. It just locks a girl up in a box to be born a Methodist!”
This attitude of Roland’s was a very cruel one. It taught Denas to feel that her secrecy was not her fault. She continually told herself that she would have been glad to talk over her future plans with her parents if they would only have listened to her; that it was not her fault if they were unreasonable and bigoted––not her fault if her mind had grown beyond her surroundings; that her father and128mother ought to consider that her education and her companionship with Elizabeth Tresham had led naturally to the craving for a wider life; and that if they give the first they ought in common justice to be ready to consider the consequences with her.
“But they will not,” she thought angrily. “They want me to settle down and be content with Tris Penrose. I dare not tell them that Roland loves me. Roland dare not tell them either. I cannot say a word to them about my voice and the money it may make. Roland says any reasonable father and mother would be quite excited at the prospect and glad to go to London with me. But will my father and mother do so? Oh, no! In order to do myself justice I am obliged to run away. It is too bad! Any sensible person would feel sorry for me.”
With such specious reasoning she satisfied her conscience, and the afternoon wore away in gathering gloom and fierce scuds of rain. It was nearly dark at four o’clock, and she rose and brought a small round table to the hearth and began to put on it the tea-cups and the bread and butter. As she did so Joan entered the room. Her arms were full of clean clothing, but glancing at the table she threw them above her head, and regardless of the scattered garments cried out:
“Denas! Look to the loaf! Some poor ship be in distress! Pray God it be not your father’s.”
Then Denas with trembling hands lifted the loaf, which she had inadvertently laid down wrong side upward, and placed it, with a “God save the ship and all in her,” in the proper position. But Joan129was thoroughly unnerved by the ominous incident, and she sat down with her apron over her head, rocking herself slowly to her inaudible prayer; while Denas, with a resentful feeling she did not try to understand, gathered up the pieces of linen and flannel her mother had apparently forgotten.
Into this scene stepped a young man in the Burrell Court livery. He gave Denas a letter, but refused the offer of a cup of tea, because “the storm was hurrying landward, and he would be busy all to catch the cliff-top before it caught him.”
Joan took no notice of the interruption, and Denas felt her trouble over such a slight affair as a turned loaf to be almost a personal offence. In a short time she said: “Mother, your tea is waiting; and I have a letter from Mrs. Burrell, if you care anything about it.”
“Aw, my girl, I care little for Mrs. Burrell’s letters to-night. She be well and happy, no doubt; and my old dear is in the wind’s teeth and pulling hard against a frosty death.”
“Father knows the sky and the sea, and I think it is cruel hard of him to take such risks.”
“And where will the fishers be who do take no risks? Fish be plenty just before a storm, and the London market-boat waiting for the take; and why wouldn’t the men do their duty, danger or no danger?”
“I would rather die than be a fisher’s wife.”
“Aw, my girl, the heart for one isn’t in you.”
“I never saw you so nervous before, mother.”
“Nervous! Nervous! No, my dear, it be downright130fear. I never knew what fear was before. I’ve gone down-daunted––that be the trouble, Denas. I’ve had such dreams lately––such creepy-like, ghastly old dreams of wandering in wayless ways covered with water; of seeing the hearth-place full of cold ashes and the lights put out; and of carrying the ‘Grief Child’ in my breast, a puny, wailing bit of a baby that I could not be rid of, nor yet get away from––sights and sounds after me night and day that do give me a turn to think of; and what they do mean I haven’t mind-light for to see. God help us! But I do fear they be signs of trouble. And who goes into the way of trouble but your father? May God save him from it!”
“Trouble is no new thing, mother.”
“That be the truth. Trouble be old as the floods of Dava.”
“And it does seem to me religious people, who are always talking about trusting God, are a poor, unhappy kind. If you do believe, mother, that God is the good Father you say He is––if you do think He has led millions to His own heavenly city––I wonder at you always fearing that He is going to forget you and let you lose your way and get into all kinds of danger and sorrow.”
“There, then! You be right for once, my dear. Your father, he do serve the Lord with gladness, but a wife’s heart is nothing but a nest of fear. And it be true that I do not think so much of serving the Lord as of having the Lord serve me; and when it is me and always me, and your heart be top-full of your dismal old self, how can you serve131God with gladness? You be right to give me a set-down, Denas. Come, now, what is Mrs. Burrell’s letter about? I be pleased and ready to hear it now, my dear.”
“This is what she says, mother:
“‘Dear Denas:––I am troubled about Roland and you. I want very much to talk things over with you. If I offended you when you were at the Court, I am very sorry for it. Come and spend a day next week with me. I will send the carriage to Miss Mohun’s.“‘Your friend,“‘Elizabeth Burrell.’”
“‘Dear Denas:––I am troubled about Roland and you. I want very much to talk things over with you. If I offended you when you were at the Court, I am very sorry for it. Come and spend a day next week with me. I will send the carriage to Miss Mohun’s.
“‘Your friend,“‘Elizabeth Burrell.’”
“Why is she troubled about you and that young man? Is he not in London now?”
“He is here, and there, and everywhere. Would you go to the Court again, mother? I told you how Elizabeth behaved to me.”
“Aw, then she had the bride-fever, my dear. She will be come to her senses by this time. Yes, yes, if you aren’t very sure how to act, take the kind way rather than the ill way; you will be mostly right, my dear.”
Of course Denas had no idea of taking either way, but the invitation furnished her with a reason for wearing her best dress on Monday; and she had been much exercised to find out a cause for this unusual finery. She felt quite excited over this fortunate incident, and she could not avoid a smile when she reflected that Elizabeth had so opportunely furnished her with the very thing she wanted.
132
Then for an hour or two Joan quite controlled herself. She asked after the news of the upper town, and listened with interest to her daughter’s description of the dresses she was helping to fashion. From this topic they glided naturally to Christmas and its coming festivities, and Joan talked a good deal of the new silver watch they had decided to give John as a Christmas gift, and so for some time she was as full of plans and happy hopes as a little child could be.
She did not notice that after a while Denas grew weary and constrained, that speech seemed a trouble to her, that she lost herself frequently in reverie, and was as nearly nervous as she had accused her mother of being. But the conversation finally flagged so much that Joan began to worry about the weather once more. The wind was now frightful, the icy rain rattled against the windows, and at the open door Joan could hear billow on billow, crash on crash, shrieking blast on shrieking blast. She was unable to preserve her cheerfulness. Like all strong hearts in anxiety, she became silent. The platitudes of Denas, dropped without interest, annoyed her; she only moved her head in reply.
Midnight came, and no boats. There was a pitifully frequent opening of cottage doors, and the sudden flashes of fire and candle light that followed revealed always some white, fearful face thrust out into the black night, in the hope of hearing the shouts of the home-coming men. Joan could not keep away from the door; and the yawning of Denas, her shifting movements, her uncontrolled133sleepiness, irritated Joan. In great anxiety, companionship not perfectly sympathetic is irritating; mere mortals quiver under its infliction. For Denas could not perceive any special reason for unusual fear; she longed to go to bed and sleep, as she had done many a time before under the same circumstances. She laid the Bible on the table before Joan and said: “Won’t you read a psalm and lie down a bit, mother?”
“No. Read for yourself, and to bed then if you want to go.”
Denas opened the book. Her father’s mark was in the psalms, and she began to read to herself.
Joan’s face was beneath her blue apron. David’s words did not interpret her at this hour; only her own lips could speak for her own sorrow and fear. There was a deep stillness in the house. Outside the tempest raged wildly. It seemed to Joan as if hours passed in that interval of heart-trembling; she was almost shocked when the old clock gave its long whirring warning and then struck onlyone. Her first look was to the fire. It wanted replenishing. Her next was at Denas. The girl was fast asleep. Her hands were across the open Bible, her face was dropped upon them. Joan touched her and said not unkindly:
“A little bit of Bible-reading do send people to sleep quick, don’t it, Denas?”
“I was so tired, mother.”
“Aw, my dear, you be no worse than Christian in the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ He did go to sleep, too, when he was reading his roll. Come, my girl, it is134your time for bed. Sitting up won’t help you to bear trouble.”
“Mother, won’t it be time enough to bear trouble when it is really here to be borne?”
“It do seem as if it would. Love be a fearful looker-forward. Go to bed, my girl; maybe you will sleep sorrow away.”
So Denas went to bed and did not awake until the grey light of the stormy morning was over everything. She could hear the murmur of voices in the living-room, and she dressed quickly and went there. John Penelles sat by the fire drinking hot tea. His hair had yet bits of ice in it, his face still had the awful shadow that is cast by the passing-by of death. Denas put her arms around his neck and kissed him; she kissed him until she began to sob, and he drew her upon his knee, and held her to his breast, and said in a whisper to her:
“Ten men drowned, my dear, and three frozen to death; but through God’s mercy father slipped away from an ugly fate.”
“Oh, father, how could you bear it?”
“God help us, Denas, we must bear what is sent.”
“What a night it has been! How did you live through it?”
“It’s dogged as does it and lives through it. It’s dogged as does anything, my dear, all over the world. I stuck to the boat and the boat stuck to me. God Almighty Himself can’t help a coward.”
The storm continued all day, but began to slacken in intensity at sunset. There was of course no135service at Pendree. John, even if he had not been so worn out, could not have reached the place in such a storm, either by land or sea. But the neighbours, without seeming premeditation, gathered in John’s cottage at night, and he opened his Bible and read aloud:
“Terrors take hold on him, as waters; a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.”
And it was to these words, with their awful application to the wicked, that Denas listened the last night she intended to spend under her father’s roof. John’s discourses were nearly always like his nature, tender and persuasive; and this terrible sermon wove itself in and out of her wandering thoughts like a black scroll in a gay vesture. It pained and troubled her, though she did not consider why it should do so. After the meeting was over John was very weary; but he would not go to bed until he had eaten supper. He “wanted his little maid to sit near him for half-an-hour,” he said. And he held her hand in his own hand, and gave her such looks of perfect love and blessed her so solemnly and sweetly when at length he left her that she began to sob again and to stand on tiptoe that she might throw her arms around his neck and touch his lips with hers once more.
Her kisses were wet with her tears, and they made John’s heart soft and gentle as a baby’s. “She be the fondest little maid,” he said to his wife. “She be the fondest little maid! I could take a whole136year to praise her, Joan, and then I could not say enough.”
In reality, the last two days, with their excess of vital emotions, had worn Denas out. Never before had the life into which she was born looked so unlovely to her. She preferred the twitter and twaddle of Priscilla’s workroom to the intense realities of an existence always verging on eternity. She dared to contrast those large, heroic fishers, with their immovable principles and their constant fight with all the elemental forces for their daily bread, with Roland Tresham; and to decide that Roland’s delicate beauty, pretty, persuasive manners, and fashionable clothing were vastly superior attributes. So she was glad when the morning came, for she was weary of enduring what need no longer be endured.
It still rained, but she put on her best clothing, and Joan was not pleased at her for doing so. She thought she might come home some night when the rain was over and change her dress for the visit to Burrell Court. This difference of opinion made their last meal together a silent one; for John was in a deep sleep and Joan would not have him disturbed. Denas just opened the door and stood a moment looking at the large, placid face on the white pillow. As she turned away, it seemed as if she cut a piece out of her heart; she had a momentary spasm of real physical pain.
Joan had not yet recovered from her night of terror. Her face was grey, her eyes heavy, her heart still beating and aching with some unintelligible137sense of wrong or grief. And she looked at her child with such a dumb, sorrowful inquiry that Denas sat down near her and put her head on her mother’s breast and asked: “What is it, mother? Have I done anything to grieve you?”
“Not as I know by, dear. I wish you hadn’t worn your best dress––dresses do cost money, don’t they now?”
“Yes, they do, mother. There then! Shall I take it off? I will, to please you, mother.”
“No, no! The will be as good as the deed from my little girl. Maybe you are right, too. Dress do go a long way to pleasing.”
“Then good-bye. Kiss me, mother! Kiss me twice! Kiss me again, for father!”
So Joan kissed her child. She smoothed her hair, and straightened her collar, and put in a missed button, and so held her close for a few moments, and kissed her again; and when Denas had reached the foot of the cliff, she was still watching her with the look on her face––the look of a mother who feels as if she still held her child in her arms.
O love! love! love! Is there any sorrow in life like loving?
138CHAPTER VIII.A SEA OF SORROW.
“Time the shuttle drives; but weGive to every thread its hueAnd elect our destiny.”––Burleigh.
“Time the shuttle drives; but weGive to every thread its hueAnd elect our destiny.”––Burleigh.
“Time the shuttle drives; but we
Give to every thread its hue
And elect our destiny.”
––Burleigh.
“Life does not make us, we make life.”“He gave me trust, and trust has given me meansOnce to be false for all.”––Dryden.
“Life does not make us, we make life.”
“Life does not make us, we make life.”
“He gave me trust, and trust has given me meansOnce to be false for all.”––Dryden.
“He gave me trust, and trust has given me means
Once to be false for all.”
––Dryden.
“He at the newsHeart-struck, with chilling gripe of sorrow, stood,That all his senses bound.”––Milton.
“He at the newsHeart-struck, with chilling gripe of sorrow, stood,That all his senses bound.”––Milton.
“He at the news
Heart-struck, with chilling gripe of sorrow, stood,
That all his senses bound.”
––Milton.
Ithad been raining a little when Denas bade her mother farewell, but by the time she reached the top of the cliff the rain had become fog. She stood still awhile and turned her face to the sea, and saw one drift after another roll inland, veiling the beach, and the boats, and the cottages, and leaving the whole scene a spectacle of desolation.
It affected her painfully. The love and hope in her heart did not lift her above the depressing influence of that mournful last view of her home. Was the thing that she was going to do worth while? Was anything in life worth while? The little town had a half-awakened Monday-morning look. Every139one seemed to be beginning another week with an “Oh, dear me!” sort of feeling. Miss Priscilla was just dressing her shop window, and as cross as crossed sticks over her employment. She said that Denas was late, and wondered “for goodness’ sake why she was so dressed up.”
It gave Denas a kind of spiteful pleasure to answer: “She was dressed to go to Burrell Court and spend a day with Mrs. Burrell. When she sent Mr. Burrell word the day she would come the carriage would call for her.”
“If you mean the day I can spare you best, I cannot spare you at all this week. There now!”
“I am not thinking of you sparing me, Priscilla. I am waiting for a fine day.”
“Upon my word! Am I your mistress or are you mine? And what is more, that Roland Tresham is not coming here again. I have some conscience, thank goodness! and I will not sanction such ways and such carryings on any longer. He is a dishonourable young man.”
“Has he not paid you, Priscilla?”
Before Priscilla could find the scathing words she required, an hostler from the Black Lion entered the shop and put a letter into the hand of Denas.
Priscilla turned angrily on the man and ordered him to leave her shop directly. Then she said: “Denas Penelles, you are a bad girl! I am going to write to Mrs. Burrell this day, and to your father and mother also.”
“I would not be a fool if I was you, Priscilla.”
Denas was reading the letter, and softly smiling140as she uttered the careless words. For indeed affairs were at a point now where Priscilla’s interference would hurt herself more than others. The note was, of course, from Roland. It told her that all was ready, and that the weather being so bad as to render walking very tiresome and miserable, he had engaged a carriage which would be waiting for her on the west side of the parish church at seven o’clock that night; and her lover would be waiting with it, and if Roland was to be believed, everything joyful and marvellous was waiting also.
This letter was the only sunshine throughout the day. Priscilla’s bad temper was in the ascendant, both in the shop and in the workroom. She scolded Denas for working so slowly, she made her unrip whatever she did. She talked at Denas in talking to the other girls, and the girls all echoed and shadowed their mistress’ opinions and conduct. Denas smiled, and her smile had in it a mysterious satisfaction which all felt to be offensive. But for the certain advent of seven o’clock, the day would have been intolerable.
About half-past six she put on her hat and cloak, and Miss Priscilla ordered her to take them off. “You are not going outside my house to-night, Denas Penelles,” she said. “If you sew until ten o’clock, you will not have done a day’s work.”
“I am going home, Priscilla. I will work for you no more. You have behaved shamefully to me all day, and I am going home.”
Priscilla had not calculated on such a result, and it was inconvenient to her. She began to talk more141reasonably, but Denas would listen to no apology. It suited her plans precisely to leave Priscilla in anger, for if Priscilla thought she had gone home she would not of course send any word to her parents. So she left the workroom in a pretended passion, and shut the shop door after her with a clash that made Miss Priscilla give a little scream and the forewoman ejaculate:
“Well, there then! A good riddance of such a bad piece! I do say that for sure.”
Very little did Denas care for the opinions of Priscilla and her work-maidens. She knew that the word of any girl there could be bought for a day’s wage; she was as willing they should speak evil as well of her. Yet it was with a heart full of anger at the day’s petty slights and wrongs that she hastened to the place mentioned by Roland. As she turned into the street at one end the carriage entered it at the other. It came to meet her; it stopped, and Roland leaped to her side. In another moment she was in the carriage. Roland’s arm was around her; he was telling her how grateful he was; how happy! how proud! He was promising her a thousand pleasures, giving her hope after hope; vowing an unalterable and never-ending love.
And Denas surrendered herself to his charm. After the last three dreadful days, it did seem a kind of heaven to be taken right out of a life so hard and unlovely and so full of painful emotions; to be kissed and flattered and to be treated like a lady. The four miles she had expected to walk went like a happy dream; she was sorry when they142were passed and the bare railway station was reached. It was but a small place lit by a single lamp, but Roland improvised a kind of couch, and told her to sleep while he watched and smoked a cigar.
In a short time he returned, and said that there was no train to Plymouth until midnight; but an express for London would pass in half an hour, and they had better take it. Denas thought a moment, and answered with a decision that made Roland look curiously at her: “No. I will not go to London to be married. I know the preacher at Plymouth. We will wait for the Plymouth train.” It was not a very pleasant wait. It was cold and damp and inexpressibly dreary, and Roland could not avoid showing that he was disappointed in not taking the London train.
But the hours go by, no matter to what measure, and midnight came, and the train came, and the comfort and privacy of a first-class carriage restored the lover-like attitude of the runaways. Early in the morning they reached Plymouth, and as soon as possible they sought the house of the Wesleyan preacher. It stood close to the chapel and was readily found. A written message on Roland’s card brought him at once to the parlour. He looked with interest and curiosity and some disapproval at the couple.
“Mr. Tresham,” he said, glancing at the card which he held in his hand, “you wish me to marry you. I think–––” He was going to make some inquiries or objections, but he caught the expression143of anxiety in the face of Denas, and then he looked carefully at her and asked:
“Have I not seen you before?”
“Yes, sir, when you preached at St. Penfer last summer. I am the daughter of John Penelles.”
“The fisher Penelles?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh! Yes, Mr. Tresham, I will marry you at once. It will be the best thing, under the circumstances, I am sure. Follow me, sir.” As they went along a narrow covered way, he called a servant and gave her an order, and then opening a door ushered the would-be bride and bridegroom into the chapel, and straight to the communion rail.
Denas knelt down there, and for a few moments lost herself in sincere prayer. After all, in great emotion prayer was her native tongue. When she stood up and lifted her eyes, the preacher’s wife and two daughters were at her side, and the preacher himself was at the communion table, with the open book in his hand. The bare chapel in the grey daylight; the strange tones of the preacher’s voice in the empty place; the strange women at her side––it was all like a dream. She felt afraid to move or to look up. She answered as she was told, and she heard Roland answer also. But his voice did not sound real and happy, and when he took the plain gold ring from the preacher’s hand and said after him, “With this ring I thee wed,” she raised her eyes to her husband’s face. It was pale and sombre. No answering flash of love met hers, and she felt it difficult to restrain her tears.
144
In truth, Roland was smitten with a sudden irresolution that was almost regret. As Denas knelt praying, there had come to his mind many a dream he had had of his own wedding. He had always thought of it in some old church that would be made to glow with bride-roses and ring with bride-music. Young maidens and men of high degree were to tread the wedding march with him. Dancing and feasting, gay company and rich presents, were to add glory to some fair girl wife, whom he would choose because, of all others, she was the loveliest; and the wealthiest, and the most to be desired.
And then his eyes fell upon the girl at his feet, in her plain dark dress crushed and disordered with a night’s travel; the bare, empty chapel; the utter want of music, flowers, company, or social support of any kind; the small, rigid-looking preacher without surplice or insignia of holy office; the half-expressed disapproval on the countenances of the three women present as witnesses––it was not thus Elizabeth was married; it was not thus he himself ought to have been married. How the surroundings might affect Denas he did not even think; and yet the poor girl also had had her dreams, which this cold, dreary reality in no measure redeemed.
But the ring was on her finger; she was Roland’s wife. Nothing could ever make her less. She heard the preacher say: “Come into the vestry, Mrs. Tresham, and sign the register.” And then Roland gave her his arm and kissed her, and she went with the little company, and took the pen from her husband’s145hand, and wrote boldly for the last time her maiden name:
“Denasia Penelles.”
Roland looked inquiringly at her, and she smiled and answered: “That is right, dear. I was christened Denasia.”
Very small things pleased Roland, and the new name delighted him. All the way to London he spoke frequently of it. “You are now Denasia, my darling,” he said. “Let the old name slip with the old life. Besides, Denasia is an excellent public name. You can sing under it splendidly. Such a noble name! Why did you let everyone spoil it?”
“Everyone thought Denas was my name. Father and mother always called me Denas, and people forgot that it was only part of my name. Fisher-folk have short names, or nicknames.”
“But, really, Denasia Penelles is a very distinguished name. A splendid one for the public.”
“Why not Denasia Tresham?”
“Because, my dear, there are Treshams living in London who would be very angry at me if I put their name on a bill-board. The Treshams are a very proud family.”
“Roland, it would kill my father if I put his name on anything that refers to a theatre. You don’t know how he feels on that subject. It is a thing of life and death––I mean the soul’s life or death––to him.”
A painful discussion, in which both felt hurt and angry and both spoke in very affectionate terms, followed. It lasted until they reached the great146city which stretches out her hands to every other city. Roland had secured rooms in a very dull, respectable house in Queen’s Square, Bloomsbury. He had often stayed there when his finances did not admit of West End luxuries, and the place was suitable for many other reasons.
Then followed two perfectly happy weeks for Denas. She had written a few lines to her parents while waiting for a train at Exeter, and she then resolved not to permit herself to grieve about their grief, because it could do them no good and it would seriously worry and annoy Roland. And Roland was so loving and generous. At his command modistes and milliners turned his plebeian bride into a fashionable, and certainly into a very lovely lady. She had more pretty costumes than she had ever dreamed of; she had walking-hats and dress-hats, and expensive furs, and she grew more beautiful with each new garment. They went to theatres and operas; they went riding and walking; they had cosey little dinners at handsome restaurants; and Roland never once named money, or singing, or anything likely to spoil the charm of the life they were leading.
During this happy interval Denas did not quite forget her parents. She wrote to them once, and she very often wondered through whom and in what manner they received the news of their loss. It was her own hand which dealt the blow. Miss Priscilla really thought Denas had gone back to her home, and she resolved on the following Sunday afternoon to walk down to the fishing village and147“make it up” with her. About Wednesday, however, there began to be floating rumours of the truth. Several people called on Priscilla and asked after the whereabouts of Denas; and the landlord of the Black Lion was talking freely of the large bill Roland had left unsettled there. But none of these rumours reached the ears of the fisher-folk, nor were they likely to do so until the St. PenferWeekly Newsappeared. The first three days of the week had been so foggy that no boat had cared to risk a sail over the bar; but on Thursday morning all was clear, and the men were eager to get out to sea. John Penelles was hastening toward his boat, when he heard a voice calling him. It was the postman, and he turned and went to meet him.
“Here be a letter for you, John Penelles. Exeter postmark. I came a bit out of my way with it. I thought you would be looking for news.”
The man was thinking of Denas and the reports about her flight; but John’s unconcern puzzled him, and he did not care to say anything more definite to the big fisherman. And, as it happened, a letter was expected from Plymouth, on chapel business; for the very preacher who had married Roland and Denas had been asked to come to St. Penfer and preach the yearly missionary sermon. John had no doubt this letter from Exeter referred to the matter. He said so to the postman, and with the unconscious messenger of sorrow in his hand went back to his cottage.
For letters were unusual events with John. If this referred to the missionary service, he would have148to read it in public next Sunday, and he was much pleased and astonished that it should have been sent to him. He felt a certain importance in the event, and was anxious to share his little triumph with his “old dear.” Joan did not quite appreciate his consideration. She had her hands in the dough, and her thoughts were upon the pipeclaying which she was going to give to the flagged floor of her cottage. She had hoped men-folks with their big boots would keep away until her work was dry and snow-white.
“Here be a letter from Exeter, Joan, to me. ’Twill be about the missionary service. I thought you would like to know, my dear.”
“Hum-m-m!” answered Joan. “I could have done without the news, John, till the bread was baked and the floor was whitened.” She had her back to John, but, as he did not speak again, she turned her face over her shoulder and looked at him. The next moment she was at his side.
“What is it, John? John Penelles, speak to me.”
John stood on the hearth with his left arm outstretched and holding an open letter. His eyes were fixed on it. His face had the rigid, stubborn look of a man who on the very point of unconsciousness arrests his soul by a peremptory act of will. He stood erect, stiff, speechless, with the miserable slip of white paper at the end of his outstretched arm.
Joan gently forced him back into his chair; she untied his many neckcloths; she bared his broad, hairy chest; she brought him water to drink; and at length her tears and entreaties melted the stone-like149rigour; his head fell forward, his eyes closed, his hand unclasped, and the letter fell to the floor. It did not interest Joan; nothing on earth was of interest to her while her husband was in that horror of stubborn suffering.
“John,” she whispered, with her face against his face––“John! My John! My good heart, be yourself and tell Joan what is the matter. Is it sickness of your body, John? Is it trouble of your mind, John? Be a man, and speak to God and to me. God is our refuge and our strength––think o’ that. A very present help in trouble––present, not a long way off, John, not in heaven; but here in your heart and on your hearth. Oh, John! John! do speak to me.”
“To be sure, Joan! The letter, dear; read it––read it aloud––I may be mistaken––it isn’t possible, I’m sure. God help us both!”
Joan lifted the letter and read aloud the words written so hastily in a few moments of time, but which brought to two loving hearts years of anxious sorrow:
“‘Dear Father and Mother:––I have just been married to Roland Tresham, and we are on our way to London. I love Roland so much, I hope you will forgive me. I will write more from London. Your loving child,“‘Denas Tresham.’”
“‘Dear Father and Mother:––I have just been married to Roland Tresham, and we are on our way to London. I love Roland so much, I hope you will forgive me. I will write more from London. Your loving child,
“‘Denas Tresham.’”
“Oh, Joan, my dear! My heart be broken! My heart be broken! My heart be broken!”