"I knew John years ago. We sat in the same boat. I like John--he is a true man. Here be three letters. At first I thought these letters be going to bring a deal of potter and bother--maybe something worse--and I will put them in the fire. Then I thought, they bean"t your letters, Pyn, and if you want to keep yourself out of a mess, never interfere and never volunteer. So here they be. But if you will take an old man"s advice, I do say to you, burn the letters. It will be better far than to be reading them."
"Why will it be better?"
"There be letters worse than death drugs. If you do buy a bottle of a.r.s.enic, the man will put its character on the bottle. You see "poison" and you be warned. But young men do write poison, and worse than poison, to young women, and no warning outside the letter. It isn"t fair, now, is it?"
"Why did you take charge of the poison?"
"To be sure! Why did I? Just because it was for John Penelles" little girl, and I thought mayhap she"d take a warning from me. Don"t you read them letters, my dear. If you do, let the words go in at one ear and out of the other. Roland Tresham! he be nothing to trust to! Aw, my dear--a leaky boat--a boat adrift; no man at the helm; no helm to man; no sail; no compa.s.s; no anchor; no anything for a woman to trust to! There, then, I have had my say; if this say be of no "count, twould be the same if I talked my tongue away. If you come again and there be any letters, you will find them under the turned boat--slip your hand in--so. Dear me! You be fluttering and wuttering like a bird. Poor dear! Step into my boat and I"ll put you back home. You look as quailed as a faded flower."
Thus Pyn talked as he helped Denas into the boat and slowly settled himself to the oars. Afterward he said nothing, but he looked at Denas in a way that troubled her and made her thankful to escape his silent, pitiful condemnation. Her mother was still absent when she reached the cottage, and she was so weary that she was very grateful for the solitude. She shut her eyes for a few minutes and collected her strength, and then opened Roland"s letters.
They were full of happiness--full of wonders--full of love. He was going to Switzerland with his father. Elizabeth was there, and Miss Caroline Burrell, and a great many people whom they knew. But for him, no one was there. "Denas was all he longed for, cared for, lived for!"
Oh, much more of the same kind, for Roland"s love lay at the point of his pen.
And he told her also that he had heard many singers, many famous singers, and none with a voice so wildly sweet, so enthralling as her voice. "If you were only on the stage, Denas," he wrote, "you could sing the world to your feet; you could make a great fortune; you could do anything you liked to do."
The words entered her heart. They burned along her veins, they filled her imagination with a thousand wild dreams. She put the fatal letters safely away, and then, stretching her weary form upon her bed, she closed her eyes and began to think.
Why should she cure fish, and mend nets, and clean tables and tea-cups, if she possessed such a marvellous gift? Why should her father go fishing with his life in his hand, and her mother work hard from dawn to dark, and she herself want all the beautiful things her soul craved? And how would Elizabeth feel? Perhaps they might be glad enough yet if she married Roland. And as the possibility of returning social slights presented itself, she remembered many a debt of this kind it would be a joy to satisfy. And then Roland! Roland! Roland! He had always believed in her; always loved her. She would repay his trust and love a thousand-fold. What a joy it would be!
So she permitted herself to grasp impossibilities, to possess everything she desired. Well, in this life, what mortals know is but very little; what they imagine--ah, that is everything!
CHAPTER V.
WHAT SHALL BE DONE FOR ROLAND?
"When, lulled in pa.s.sion"s dream, my senses slept, How did I act?--E"en as a wayward child.
I smiled with pleasure when I should have wept, And wept with sorrow when I should have smiled."
--MONCRIEFF.
"Love not, love not! O warning vainly said In present years, as in the years gone by; Love flings a halo round the dear one"s head, Faultless, immortal--till they change or die."
--HON. MRS. NORTON.
Hope has a long reach, and yet it holds fast. So, though Roland"s return was far enough away, Denas possessed it in antic.i.p.ation. The belief that he would come, that he would give her sympathy and a.s.sistance, helped her through the long sameness of uneventful days by the witching promise, "Anon--anon!"
There was little to vary life in that quiet hamlet. The pilchard season went, as it had come, in a day; men counted their gains and returned to their usual life. Denas tried to accept it cheerfully; she felt that it would soon be a past life, and this conviction helped her to invest it with some of that tender charm which clings to whatever enters the pathetic realm of "Nevermore."
Her parents were singularly kind to her, and John tried to give a little excitement to her life by coaxing her to share with him the things he considered quite stirring. But visits to her aunt at St.
Merryn, and Sunday trips to hear some new preacher, and choir practisings with Tris dangling after them wherever they went, were not interesting to the wayward girl. She only endured them, as she endured her daily duties by keeping steadily in view the hope Roland had set before her. However, as she sang nearly constantly, Joan"s mind was easy; she was sure Denas could not be very discontented, for it never entered Joan"s thought that people could sing unless there was melody in their heart. And undoubtedly Denas was cheered by her own music, for if song is given half a chance it has the miraculous power of turning the water of life into wine.
Only two more letters repaid her for many walks to the turned boat, and she did not see Pyn again. She was sure, however, that he knew of her visits and wilfully avoided her. The last of these letters contained the startling intelligence of Mr. Tresham"s death. He had foolishly insisted upon visiting Rome in the unhealthy season and had fallen a victim to fever. Roland wrote in a very depressed mood. He said that his father"s death would make a great difference to him. In a short time the news arrived by the regular sources. Lawyer Tremaine had been advised to take charge of Mr. Tresham"s personal estate, and the newspaper of the district had a long obituary of the deceased gentleman.
John said very little on the subject. He had not liked Mr. Tresham while living, but he was particularly careful to avoid speaking ill of the dead. He said only that he had heard that "the effects left would barely cover outstanding debts, and that Mr. Tresham"s income died with him. "Tis a good thing Miss Tresham be well married," he added, "else "twould have been whist hard times for her now."
Denas did not answer. Her sudden and apparently unreasonable indifference to her former friend was one of the many mental changes which she could not account for. But she waited impatiently for some word about Roland. John appeared to have nothing to say. Joan hesitated with the question on her lips, and at last she almost threw it at her husband.
"What did you hear about young Mr. Tresham?"
"I asked no questions about him. People do say that he will have to go to honest work now. "Twill do him no harm, I"m sure."
"Honest work will be nothing strange to him, father. He has been in a great many offices. I have heard Elizabeth speaking of many a one."
"I"ll warrant--many a one--and he never stays in any. He has a bad temper for work."
"Bad temper! That is not true. Mr. Roland has a very good temper."
"Good temper! To be sure, after a fashion, a kind of _Hy-to-everybody_ fashion. But a good business temper, Denas, be a different thing; it be steady, patient, civil, quiet, hard-to-work temper, and the young man has not got it. No, nor the shadow of it. If he was worth thousands this year he wouldn"t have a farthing next year unless he had a guider and a withholder by his side constantly."
"You ought not to speak of Mr. Roland at all, father, you hate him that badly."
"Right you be, Denas. I ought not to speak of the young man. I will let him alone. And I"ll thank every one in my house to do the same thing."
For some weeks John"s orders were carefully observed. Denas got no more letters, and the summer weather became autumn weather; and then the leaves faded and began to fall, and the equinoctial storm set the seal of advancing winter on the cliff-breast. Yet through all these changes the clock ticked the monotonous days surely away, and one morning when Denas was standing alone in the cottage door a little lad slipped up and put a letter into her hand.
He was gone in a moment, and Denas, even while answering a remark of her mother"s, who was busy at the fireside, hid the message in her bosom. Of course it was from Roland. He said that they had all returned to Burrell Court and that he could not rest until he had seen her. Wet or fine, he begged she would be at their old trysting-place that evening.
Then she began to consider how this was to be managed, and she came to the conclusion that a visit to St. Penfer was the best way. She knew well how to prepare for it--the little helps, and confidences, and personal chatter Joan was always pleased and flattered by were the wedge. Then as they washed the dinner dishes and tidied the house together, Denas said:
"Mother, it is going to storm soon, and then whole days to sit and sew and nothing to talk about. Priscilla Mohun promised me some pretty pieces for my quilt, and Priscilla always knows everything that is going on. What do you think? Shall I go there this afternoon? I could get the patches and hear the news and bring back a story paper, and so be home before you would have time to miss me."
"Well, my dear, we do feel to be talked out."
"Priscilla will tell me all there is to hear, and if I get the patches, a few days" sewing and the quilt will be ready for you to cross-st.i.tch; and a story paper is such a comfort when the storm is beating you back to house every hour of the day."
"You say right--it be a great comfort. But you will have to be busy all, for it is like enough to rain within an hour--the tide will bring it, I"ll warrant."
"I will wear my waterproof. Mother, dear, I do want a little change so much--just to see some new faces and hear tell of the St. Penfer people."
"Well, then, go your way, Denas, a wetting will do you no harm; and I do know the days be long days, and the nights do never seem to come to midnight and then wear to c.o.c.k-crow. "Twould be a whist poor life, my dear, if this life were all."
Denas was now very anxious to get off before her father came back from his afternoon gossip at the boats. With a gay heart she left her home and hastened to St. Penfer to execute the things that had been her ostensible reason for the visit. As it happened, Priscilla Mohun was full of news. The first thing she said to Denas related to the return of the Burrells, and then followed all the gossip about the treasures they had brought with them and changes to be made in the domestic life of the Court.
"Mrs. Burrell be going to turn things upside down, I can tell you, Denas. They do say four new servants are hired, two men and two women; and the horses brought down are past talking about, with silver tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs on their harness--that, and no less--and carriages of all kinds, and one kind finer than the other! I do suppose Mrs. Burrell"s gowns will be all London or Paris bought now; though to be sure poor Priscilla did make her wedding-dress--but there, then! what be the use of talking?"
"How long have they been at home?" asked Denas.
"La! I thought if anybody knew that it would be you. I was just taking a walk last Wednesday, and I happened to see them driving through the town; Mr. Burrell and his sister, and Mrs. Burrell and her handsome brother--how happy they looked, and everyone lifting their hats or making a respectful move to them."
Last Wednesday! and it was now Monday. Denas was dashed by the news.
But she chattered away about everyone they knew, and got her patches, and her story paper, and then, just as the gloaming was losing itself in the fog from the sea, she started down the cliff. Roland was waiting for her. He took her in his arms and kissed her with an eager and delighted affection; and though the fog had changed to a soft rain, neither of them appeared to be uncomfortably aware of the fact.
Denas drew the hood of her waterproof over her head and Roland the heavy collar of his coat about his ears, and they sat close together on the damp rock, with Roland"s umbrella over them.
There was so much to say that they really said nothing. When they had but half finished repeating "Sweet Denas!" and "Dear Roland!" Denas had to go. It was only then she found courage to intimate, in a half-frightened way, that she had been thinking and wondering about her voice, and if she really could learn to sing. Roland flushed with delight to find the seed he had sown with so much doubt grown up to strength and ripeness.