A Singer from the Sea Part 27

He was sure that Denasia had returned to St. Penfer. He knew that ever since they came to America she had written at intervals to her parents, and though it was indeed a labour of love for either John or Joan to write a letter, Denasia had had several communications from them. Evidently, then, she had been forgiven, and he had no doubt that for the sake of her child she hurried homeward as soon as it was possible for her to secure a pa.s.sage.

Still he allowed three weeks to pa.s.s ere he made any inquiries. During those three weeks his own life had settled into very easy and pleasant ways. He breakfasted alone or with Mr. Lanhearne. Then he read the morning papers aloud and attended to the mail. If the weather were favourable, this duty was followed by a stroll or drive in the park.

Afterward he was very much at leisure until dinner-time, and at nine o'clock Mr. Lanhearne's retirement to his own room gave him those evening hours which most young men consider the desirable ones. Roland generally went to some theatre or musical entertainment. There was always the vague expectation of seeing and hearing Denasia, and he scarcely knew whether his disappointment was a pleasure or an annoyance.

At the end of the third week he ventured to the Second Avenue house.

The room they had occupied was dark. He watched it until midnight. If Denasia had been singing anywhere, she would certainly have returned to her child before that hour. The next night he sent a messenger to inquire for her address, and the boy said, "It was not known. Mrs.

Tresham had left two weeks before. She had spoken of England, but it was not positively known that she had gone there."

"She is likely in St. Penfer by this time," mentally commented Roland, and the thought gave him comfort. He did want Denasia and the baby to be taken care of, and he knew they would want no necessary thing in John Penelles' cottage. But it was this very certainty of Denasia's return to England which really detained Roland in America. He had no desire to meet John Penelles until time had healed the wound he had given John's daughter. John would be sure to seek him out in London, and there might be no end of trouble; but John would not come to America, nor would he be likely in the summer season to leave the fishing and seek him either in Paris or Switzerland. As for Elizabeth, she knew from her brother's letters that he had deceived and left his wife, and she had, of course, thought it proper to offer a feeble remonstrance, but Roland knew right well she would never betray his hiding-place.

So Roland lived on week after week in luxurious thoughtlessness. Mr.

Lanhearne grew very fond of him, and Ada, in spite of her numerous objects of charitable interest, found it singularly pleasant to discuss with so handsome and intelligent a companion religious topics on which their opinions were widely apart. Indeed, she honestly accepted the evident duty of leading him back to the safe and narrow road of creditable dogmas. And with such a fair, earnest teacher it was easy, it was natural for Roland to affect an interest in the subject he did not really feel.

Dangerous ground for both, but especially so for the lovely young woman whose sincerity and singleness of purpose led her to believe that a very natural and womanly instinct was the prompting of a spiritual concern for an immortal soul wandering from the right path.

Roland as a hypocrite, affecting a piety he despised, would not have been either so captivating or so dangerous as Roland honestly ignorant and doubtful, yet willing to be taught and convinced.

Dangerous ground for both, for both constantly a.s.sured themselves there was no danger. Ada Lanhearne was not a woman that any man could approach with laughter or half-concealed flirtation. And Roland had no desire to overstep the boundary her n.o.ble presence inspired. Also, Denasia held him by the mysterious strength of the marriage tie. Apart from her and relieved of the petty cares which degraded their love, he forgot her shortcomings and thought more and more frequently of her affectionate, forgiving heart. The radiance of her youthful beauty was still in his memory, and the haunting charm of her voice called him at all kinds of incongruous hours. He awoke at night with the silvery cry of "Caller Herrin'" in his ears. At the dinner-table he heard her light musical laugh ring through the decorous, quiet room, and often when discussing an old Roman coin with Mr. Lanhearne he felt her hand upon his shoulder, and feared to turn lest her face should confront him.

Ada's beaming eyes, and soft voice, and mystical rapture of holy enthusiasm touched him on quite a different side of his nature. She made him long to be good--he was almost afraid he would become good if he dwelt too much in her presence. And he did not desire to be so--not just yet. But as she talked so earnestly to him of righteousness, and duty and the life to come, it was impossible that he should not in some way respond. And when his handsome eyes were shadowed with feeling and his gay face and manner subdued to the gravity of the subject, it was equally impossible for the young teacher not to be moved by the evidences of her own eloquent persuasion.

After all, much must be left to the imagination; the situation was so full of possibilities, so absolutely free of all wrong conditions, so ready to yield itself to many wrong conditions. Roland's days went by in a placid sameness, which did not become fretting, because he knew he should end its pleasant monotony of his own free will in a very few weeks. And Ada had never before been so happy. Why should she ask herself the reason? To question fate is not a fortunate thing, at any rate; she felt a reluctance to begin a catechism with her feelings or her surroundings.

So the Christmas came and went, and the days lengthened and the cold strengthened, and there was so much misery among the poor that Ada's time and money were taxed to their uttermost use and ability. And the suffering she saw left its shadow on her fair face. She was quieter because her thoughts were deep in her heart and did not therefore readily resolve themselves into words. The mystery of the whole creation suffering together oppressed and solemnized her life, for it was no hearsay of cold, and hunger, and wretchedness that touched Ada.

She sat down on the cold hearths with broken-hearted wives and mothers, and held upon her knees the little children ready to perish.

Money she gave to the uttermost, but with the money something infinitely more precious--love, like that which made the Christ put His hand upon the leper as well as heal him; womanly sympathy, which listened patiently to tales of intolerable wrongs and to the moans of extreme physical suffering.

In her own home she seldom spoke of these experiences. Mr. Lanhearne did not altogether approve of them. Like the centurion of old, he thought it was sufficient to "speak the word only," that is, to give the money necessary to relieve suffering. And he did not see why his child's life should be shadowed by carrying the griefs of others. So there was very seldom any talk on these matters, unless Ada required a.s.sistance. Then she spoke with such clear sincerity and pathos that her father felt it to be a privilege to be her right hand, and for the time being was probably as enthusiastic as herself. But these were rare occasions; Ada was too wise and considerate to stretch a generous or a gentle emotion until it failed.

One bitterly cold night in February Roland returned to Lanhearne House in a particularly unhappy mood. He had been down-town as far as Twenty-third Street, and had been subjected to all the depressing influences of the cold, brown-stony city, swept by that most cruel of winds--the east wind which comes with a thaw. The sullen poor, standing desperate and scornful at the street corners, seemed to cast a malevolent eye upon his handsome, well-clothed person. There had been a terrible accident, followed by a fire, somewhere in the city, and the raw, cutting air was full of its horror. As he pa.s.sed a group of men, a poor shivering creature said pa.s.sionately, "Accident indeed!

All accidents are crimes!" The friction of the interests and wills encompa.s.sing him evolved an atmosphere which he had no strength to antagonise. He simply submitted to its worry and restlessness and unhappy discontent, and so carried the spirit home with him.

It was met on the threshold by influences that drove it back into the desolate street. The warm, light house and the peace and luxury of his own room soothed his mental sense of something wrong. And when he descended to the parlour, he was instantly encompa.s.sed by soft warmth, by firelight and gaslight, by all the visible signs and audible sounds of sincere pleasure in his advent. Mr. Lanhearne had a new periodical to discuss, and Ada, though unusually grave, lifted her still face with the smile of welcome on it.

She had, however, an evident anxiety, and Mr. Lanhearne probably divined its origin, for after dinner was over he said: "Ada, I saw your little missionary here, late. Is there anything very wrong?"

"I was just going to tell you, father. Mr. Tresham may listen also, it can do him no harm. Mrs. Dodge came to tell me of a most distressing case. She was visiting an old patient in a large tenement, and the woman told her to call at the room directly above her. As she went away she did so. It was only four o'clock then, but in that place quite dark. When she reached the door she heard a voice praying--heard a voice thanking G.o.d amid sobs and tears--oh, father, what for? For the death of her baby! Crying out in a pa.s.sion of grat.i.tude because it was released from hunger and cold and suffering!"

Mr. Lanhearne covered his face, and Roland looked at Ada with his large eyes troubled and misty. The girl was speechless for a moment or two, and Roland watched her sympathetic face and saw tears drop upon her clasped hands. Then she resumed: "Mrs. Dodge entered softly. The mother was sitting on a chair with her dead baby across her knees.

There was no fire, no candle in the room, but the light from an oil-lamp in a near window fell upon the white faces of the mother and her dead child. There is no need to tell you that Mrs. Dodge quickly made a fire, cooked the poor famished creature a meal, and then prepared the dead child for its burial. But she says the mother is distracted because she cannot buy it a grave and a coffin. I have promised to do that; you will help me, father? I know you will."

"To be sure I will, Ada. To be sure, my dear one! I will help gladly.

Has the poor, sorrowful woman no husband to comfort her in this extremity?"

"She says he is dead. Her history is a little out of the common. She is an English woman and was a public singer. The name she is known by is Mademoiselle Denasia--but that, of course, is not her real name."

A quick, sharp cry broke from Roland's lips. He was grey as ashes. He trembled visibly and stood up, though his emotion compelled him instantly to reseat himself. He was on the point of losing consciousness. Mr. Lanhearne and Ada looked at him with anxiety, and Mr. Lanhearne went to his side.

"I am better," he said with a heavy sigh. "I knew--I knew this poor woman! I told you I was once on the road with a company. She was in it. Her husband was a brute--a mean, selfish, cowardly brute--he ought to be dead. I should like to help her--to see her--what is the street?

the number? Excuse me--I was shocked!"

"I see, Mr. Tresham," answered Ada, kindly. She had some ivory tablets by her side, and she looked at them and said, "It is a very long way--One Hundred and Seventieth Street--here is the address. I shall be glad if you can do anything to help. I am sure she is worthy--she has had good parents and been taught to pray."

"My dear Ada," said Mr. Lanhearne, "sorrow forces men and women down upon their knees; even dumb beasts in their extremity cry unto G.o.d, and He heareth them. And as for being worthy of help--if worthiness were the condition, which of us durst pray for consolation in the hour of our trouble? G.o.d has a n.o.bler scale. He sends his rain upon the just and the unjust, and He never yet asked a suppliant, 'Whose son art thou?'"

Roland was grateful for this little discussion. It gave him a minute or two in which to summon his soul to face the position. He was able when Mr. Lanhearne ceased speaking to say:

"Mademoiselle Denasia is a Cornish woman. She comes from a village not far from where my father lived. I feel that I ought to stand by her in her sorrow. I shall be glad to do anything Miss Lanhearne thinks it right to do."

The subject was then dropped, but Roland could take up no other subject. With all his faults, he was still a creature full of warm human impulses. There was nothing of the cold, calculating villain about him. He was really shocked at the turn events had taken. Mr.

Lanhearne, who knew the world of men which Ada did not know, mentally accused his handsome, sympathetic secretary of some knowledge of the unfortunate singer which it would be best not to investigate; but Ada thought his emotion to be entirely the outcome of an unusually tender and affectionate nature.

The incident affected the evening unhappily. Roland was not able either to talk or read, and Mr. Lanhearne, out of pure sympathy for the miserable young man, retired to his own apartment very early. This was always the signal for Roland's dismissal, and five minutes after it Mr. Lanhearne, looking from his window into the bleak, wind-swept street, saw Roland rapidly descend the steps and then turn northward.

"I was sure of it," he whispered. "There is more in this affair than meets the ear, but I like the young man, and why should I rake among the ashes of the past? Which of us would care for an investigation of that kind?" Then he sat down before his fire and mentally followed Roland to the bare loneliness of that poor home where death and the mother sat together.

For once Roland feared to call, "Denasia!" He hesitated at the foot of the narrow stair and then went softly to the door. All within was still as the grave, but a glimmer of pale light came from under the ill-fitting door. He might be mistaken in the room, but he resolved to try. He turned the handle and there was an instant movement. He went forward and Denasia stood erect, facing him. She made no sound or sign of either anger, or astonishment, or affection. All her being was concentrated on the clay-cold image of humanity lying so strangely still that it filled the whole place with its majesty of silence.

He closed the door softly and said "Denasia! Oh, Denasia!"

She did not answer him, but sinking on her knees by the child, began to sob with a pa.s.sionate grief that shook her frail form as a tree is shaken by a tempest.

"My dearest! My wife! Forgive me! Forgive me! I thought you were in St. Penfer. As G.o.d lives, I believed you were with your mother. I intended to come to you, I did, indeed! Denasia, speak to me. I will never leave you again--never! We will go back to England together. I will make you a home there. I will love and cherish you for ever!

Forgive me, dear! I am sorry! I am ashamed of myself! I hate myself! I do not wonder you hate me also."

"No, no! I do not hate you, Roland. I am lost in sorrow. I cannot either love or hate."

"Let me bear the sorrow with you, coward, villain that I am!"

"You did not mean to be either. You were tired of misery--men do tire.

I would have tired, too, only for my baby. Oh, Roland! Roland! Roland!

my love, my husband!"

Then--ah, then. No one can put into mere common words the great mystery of forgiveness. It is not in words. Heart beat against heart, eyes gazed into eyes, souls met upon clinging lips, and the sweet compact of married love was renewed in the clasping of their long-parted hands. They sat down together and spoke in soft, sad voices of the great mistakes of the past. Until the midnight hour they wept and talked together, and then Denasia said:

"In a short time a poor woman who is nursing at the Gilsey House will be here. She is on duty until twelve o'clock, but as soon as she is released she promised to come and sit with me. So you must leave me now, Roland. It is useless to explain to my neighbours our relationship. They would look at you and me and think evilly. I would not blame them if they did. When all is over I will come to you; until then I will remain alone. It is best so."

Nevertheless Roland lingered and pleaded, and when he finally consented to her wish, he left all the money he had in her hands. She looked at the bills with a sad despair. "All these!" she whispered, "all these for a grave and a coffin! There was nothing at all to help him to live."

"Nothing could have saved him, Denasia. He was born under sentence of death. He has been ill all his poor little life. My darling, believe that it is well with him now."

Yet her words and tears troubled him, and he bade her good-night, and then returned so often that the woman Denasia had spoken of pa.s.sed him in the narrow entry, and he paused and watched her go to his wife's room. Even then he did not hurry to his own home. He went down the side street, and stood looking at the glimmering lamp in the sorrowful place of death until he became painfully aware of the terribly damp, cold wind searching out and chilling life, even to the very marrow of the bones. Then he remembered that he had come out in his dress boots, consequently his feet were wet and numb, and he had a fierce pain under his shoulder. A sudden, uncontrollable fear went to his heart like a death-doom.

He had to walk a long way before he found any vehicle, and when, after what seemed a never-ending period of torture, he reached his room, he knew that he was seriously ill. But the house had settled for the night; he had a reluctance to awaken the servants; he hoped the warmth would give him ease; he was, in fact, quite unacquainted with the terrible malady which had seized him. In the morning he did not appear, and after a short delay Mr. Lanhearne sent him a message.

Roland was, however, by this time in high fever and delirious. The news caused a momentary hesitation and then a positive decision. The hesitation was a natural one--"Should not the young man be sent to the hospital?" The decision came from the cultivated humanity of a good heart--"No. Roland was 'the stranger within the gates,' he was a countryman, he was more than that, he was a Cornishman." In a few moments Mr. Lanhearne had sent for his own physician and a trained nurse, and he went himself to the side of the sick man until help arrived.

Toward night Roland became very restless, and with a distressing effort constantly murmured the word "Denasia." Mr. Lanhearne thought he understood the position exactly, and he had a very pardonable hesitation in granting the half-made request. But the monotonous imploring became full of anguish, and he finally took his daughter into his councils and asked what ought to be done.