A Singer from the Sea Part 12

"Father's bankruptcy is not forgotten. We were n.o.bodies until you married Robert Burrell, and even Robert's money is all trade money."

"You are purposely trying to say disagreeable things, Roland. What fresh snub has Caroline been giving you?"

"Snubs are common to all. Big people are snubbed by lesser people, and these by still smaller ones, and so _ad infinitum_. You are a bit bigger than Denas, so you snub her, and Denas, of course, pa.s.ses on the snub. Why should she not? Where is Denas?"

"She has gone home, and I do hope she will never come here again. She behaved very impertinently."

"That I will not believe. Put the shoe on your own foot, Elizabeth.

You were rude before I left, and I dare swear you were rude, ruder, rudest after you were alone with the girl. For pure spite and ill-nature, a newly married woman beats the devil."

"Who are you talking to, Roland?"

"To you. I have to talk plainly to you occasionally--birds in their little nests agree, but brothers and sisters do not; in fact, they cannot. For instance, I should be a brute if I agreed with you about Denas."

"I say that Denas behaved very rudely. She went away without my knowledge and without bidding me good-bye. I shall decline to have any more to do with her."

"I have no doubt she has already declined you in every possible form.

As far as I can judge, she is a spirited little creature. But gracious! how she did sing this morning! I'll bet you fifty pounds if Robert Burrell had heard her sing a year ago you would not have been mistress of Burrell Court to-day."

"Either you or I must leave the room, Roland. I will not listen any longer to you."

"Sit still. I am very glad to go. I shall take a room at the Black Lion to-morrow. The atmosphere of the Court is so exquisitely rarefied and refined that I am choking in it. I only hope you may not smother Robert in it. Good-night! I notice Robert goes to London pretty often lately. Good-night."

Then he closed the door sharply and went smiling to his room. "I think I have made madame quite as uncomfortable as she has made me," he muttered, "and I will go to the Black Lion to-morrow. From there I can reach Denas without being watched at both ends. John Penelles to the right and Elizabeth Burrell to the left of me are too much and too many. For Denas I must see. I must see her if I have to dress myself in blue flannels and oil-skins to manage it."

In the morning Elizabeth ate her breakfast alone. She had determined to have a good quarrel with Roland, and make him ashamed of his speech and behaviour on the previous evening. But before she rose Roland had gone to the Black Lion, and moreover he had left orders for his packed traps and trunks to be sent after him. He had a distinct object in this move. At the Court he was constantly under surveillance, and he was also very much at Elizabeth's commands. He had little time to give to the pursuit of Denas, and that little at hours unsuitable for the purpose. But at the Black Lion his time was all his own. He could breakfast and dine at whatever hour suited his occupation; he could watch the movements of Denas without being constantly suspected and brought to book.

Her temper the previous evening, while it seriously annoyed, did not dishearten him. He really liked her better for its display. He never supposed that it would last. He expected her to make a visit to St.

Penfer the next day; she would hope that he would be on the watch for her; she would be sure of it.

But Denas did not visit St. Penfer that week, and Roland grew desperate. On Sat.u.r.day night he went down the cliff after dark and hung around John's cottage, hoping that for some reason or other Denas would come to the door. He had a note in his hand ready to put into her hand if she did so. He could see her plainly, for the only screen to the windows was some flowering plants inside and a wooden shutter on the outside, never closed but in extreme bad weather. Joan was making the evening meal, John sat upon the hearth, and Denas, with her knitting in her hands, was by his side. Once or twice he saw her rise and help her mother with some homely duty, and finally she laid down her work, and, kneeling on the rug at her father's feet, she began to toast the bread for their tea. Her unstudied grace, the charm of her beauty and kindness, the very simplicity of her dress, fascinated him afresh.

"That is the costume--the very costume--she ought to sing in," he thought. "With some fishing nets at her feet and the mesh in her hands, how that dark petticoat and that little scarlet josey would tell; the scarlet josey cut away just so at the neck. What a ravishing throat she has! How white and round!"

At this point in his reverie he heard footsteps, and he walked leisurely aside. His big ulster in the darkness was a sufficient disguise; he had no fear of being known by any pa.s.ser-by. But these footsteps stopped at John's door and then went inside the cottage.

That circ.u.mstance roused in Roland's heart a tremor he had never known before. He cautiously returned to his point of observation. The visitor was a young and handsome fisherman. It was Tris Penrose.

Roland saw with envy his welcome and his familiarity. He saw that Joan had placed for him a chair on the hearth opposite John; Denas, therefore, was at his feet also. Tris could feed his eyes upon her near loveliness. He could speak to her. He did speak to her, and Denas looked up with a smile to answer him. When the toast was made Tris helped Denas to her feet; he put her chair to the table, he put his own beside it. He waited upon her with such delight and tender admiration that Roland was made furiously angry and miserable by his rival's happiness. The poor ape jealousy began meddling in all his better feelings.

He hung around the cottage until he was freezing with cold and burning with rage. "And this is Elizabeth's doing," he kept muttering as he climbed the cliff to the upper town. He could not sleep all night. He thought of everything that could add to his despairing uncertainty.

The next day was the Sabbath. Denas would go to chapel with her father and mother. Tris would be sure to meet her there, to return home with her, to sit again at her side on that bright, homelike hearthstone.

"I wish I were a fisher," he cried pa.s.sionately. "They know what it is to live, for their boats make their cottages like heaven." He could not deny to himself that Tris was a very handsome fellow and that Denas smiled pleasantly at him. "But she never smiled once as she smiles at me. He never once drew her soul into her face, as I can draw it. She does not love him as she loves me." With such a.s.sertions he consoled his heart, the while he was trying to form some plan which would give him an opportunity to get Denas once more under his influence.

On Monday morning he went to see Priscilla Mohun. He had a long conversation with the dressmaker, and that afternoon Priscilla walked down to John's cottage and made a proposal to Denas. It was so blunt and business-like, so tight in regard to money matters, that John and Joan, and Denas also, were completely deceived. She said she had heard that Denas and Tris Penrose were to be married, and she thought Denas might like to make some steady money to help the furnishing. She would give her two shillings a day and her board and lodging. Also, she could have Sat.u.r.day and Sunday at her home if she wished.

Denas, who was fretted by the monotony of home duties really too few to employ both her mother and herself, was glad of the offer.

John, who had a little vein of parsimony in his fine nature, thought of the ten shillings a week and of how soon it would grow to be ten pounds. Joan remembered how much there was to see and hear at Miss Priscilla's, and Denas was so dull at home! Why should she not have a good change when it was well paid for? And then she remembered the happy week-ends there would be, with so much to tell and to talk over.

She asked Priscilla to stay and have a cup of tea with them, and so settle the subject. And the result was that Denas went back to St.

Penfer with Priscilla and began her duties on the next day. That evening she had a letter from Roland. It was a letter well adapted to touch her heart. Roland was really miserable, and he knew well how to cry out for comfort. He told her he had left his sister's home because Elizabeth had insulted her there. He led her to believe that Elizabeth was in great distress at his anger, but that nothing she could say or do would make him forgive her until Denas herself was satisfied.

And Denas was glad that Elizabeth should suffer. She hoped Roland would make her suffer a great deal. For Denas had not yet reached that divine condition in which it is possible to love one's enemies. She was happy to think that Roland was at the Black Lion with all his possessions; for she knew how the gossip on this occurrence would annoy all the proprieties in Mrs. Burrell's social code.

Her anger served Roland's purpose quite as much as her love. After the third letter she wrote a reply. Then she agreed to meet him; then she was quite under his influence again, much more so, indeed, than she had ever been before. In a week or two he got into the habit of dropping into Priscilla's shop for a pair of gloves, for writing paper, for the _Daily News_, for a bottle of cologne--in short, there were plenty of occasions for a visit, and he took them. And as Priscilla's was near the Black Lion and the only news depot in town, and as other gentlemen went frequently there also for the supply of their small wants, no one was surprised at Roland's purchases. His intercourse with Priscilla was obviously of the most formal character; she treated him with the same short courtesy she gave to all and sundry, and Denas was so rarely seen behind the counter that she was not in any way a.s.sociated with the customers. This indeed had been the stipulation on which John had specially insisted.

One morning Roland came hurriedly into the shop. "My sister is coming here, I am sure, Miss Mohun," he said. "Tell Denas, if you please, she said she wished to meet her again. Tell her I will remain here and stand by her." There was no time to deliberate, and Denas, acting upon the feeling of the moment, came quickly to Roland, and was talking to him when Mrs. Burrell entered. They remained in conversation a moment or two, as if loth to part; then Denas advanced to the customer with an air of courtesy, but also of perfect ignorance as to her personality.

"Well, Denas?" said the lady.

"What do you wish, madam?"

"I wish to see Miss Priscilla."

Denas touched a bell and returned to Roland, who had appeared to be unconscious of his sister's presence. Elizabeth glanced at her brother; then, without waiting for Priscilla, left the shop. The lovely face of Denas was like a flame. "Thank you, Roland!" she said with effusion. "You have paid my account in full for me."

"Then, darling, let me come here to-night and say something very important to us both. Priscilla will give me house-room for an hour, I know she will. Here she comes. Let me ask her."

Priscilla affected reluctance, but really she was prepared for the request. She had expected it before and had been uneasy at its delay.

She was beginning to fear Roland's visits might be noticed, might be talked about, might injure her custom. It pleased her much to antic.i.p.ate an end to a risky situation. She managed, without urging Denas, to make the girl feel that her relations with Roland ought either to be better understood or else entirely broken off.

So Roland went back to his inn with a promise that made him light-hearted. "Elizabeth has done me one good turn," he soliloquized.

"Now let me see. I will consider my plea and get all in order. First, I must persuade Denas to go to London. Second, the question is, marriage or no marriage? Third, her voice and its cultivation. Fourth, the hundred pounds in St. Merryn's Bank. Fifth, everything as soon as can be--to-morrow night if possible. Sixth, my own money from Tremaine. I should have about four hundred pounds. Heigho! I wish it was eight o'clock. And what an old cat Priscilla is! I do not think I shall give her the fifty pounds I promised her. She does not deserve it--and she never durst ask me for it."

CHAPTER VII.

IS THERE ANY SORROW LIKE LOVING?

"For love the sense of right and wrong confounds; Strong love and proud ambition have no bounds."

--DRYDEN.

"The fate of love is such That still it sees too little or too much."

--DRYDEN.

"Fate ne'er strikes deep but when unkindness joins.

But there's a fate in kindness, Still to be least returned where most 'tis given."

--DRYDEN.

Lovers see miracles, or think they ought to. Roland expected all his own world to turn to his love. The self-denying, forbearing, loyal affection Elizabeth had shown him all her life was now of no value, since she did not sympathize with his love for Denas. John and Joan Penelles were the objects of his dislike and scorn because they could not see their daughter's future as he saw it. He thought it only right that Priscilla Mohun should risk her business and her reputation for the furtherance of his romantic love affair. He had easily persuaded himself that it was utterly contemptible in her to expect any financial reward for a service of love.

Denas had more force of character. She was offended at Elizabeth because Elizabeth had wounded her self-respect and put her into a most humiliating position. She was too truthful not to admit that Elizabeth had from the first hour of their acquaintance openly opposed anything like love-making between Roland and herself. She understood and acknowledged the rights of her parents. In trampling on them she knew that she was sinning with her eyes open. And if Roland spent the day in arranging his plans for the future, she spent it in facing squarely the thing she had determined to do.

For she was aware that Roland was coming that night to urge her to go to London and become a public singer. She did not know how much money would be required, but she knew that whatever the sum was it must come from Roland. Then, of course, she must marry Roland at once. Under no other relationship could she take money from him. Yet on carefully questioning her memory she was sure that the subject of marriage had been avoided, or, at any rate, not spoken of in any discussion of her future.

"But," she said, with a swift motion of determination, "that is the first subject, and the one on which all others depend."