A Singer from the Sea Part 29

Let me advise you, as soon as you can bear the journey, to go to your own people. It was your husband's desire."

"I know it was, sir. I have fought hunger and sorrow and death like a cat. But there is no need to continue the fight. I will go to the good father and mother that G.o.d gave me. I will weep no more rebellious tears. I will surrender myself and wait for His comfort. I am but a poor, suffering woman, but I know the hand that has smitten me."

And Ada bowed her head and repeated softly:

"They are most high who humblest at G.o.d's knees Lie loving G.o.d, and trusting though He smite."

Then they spoke of the sea-journey, and Denas wished to go away as soon as possible. "I shall get some money as soon as I arrive in London," she said. "Lend me sufficient to pay my pa.s.sage there."

"You have no occasion to borrow money, Mrs. Tresham," said Mr.

Lanhearne. "There is a sum due your husband which will be quite sufficient to meet all your expenses home. I will send a man to secure you a good berth. Shall it be for Sat.u.r.day next?"

"I can go to-morrow very well."

"No, you cannot go to-morrow, Mrs. Tresham," answered Ada. "You must have proper clothing to travel in. If you will permit me, I will attend to this matter for you at once."

And though the proper clothing was a very prosaic comfort, it was a tangible one to Denas. She was grateful to find herself clothed in that modest, sombre decency which her condition claimed; to have all the small proprieties of the season and the circ.u.mstances, all the toilet necessities which are part of the expression of a refined nature. For the poor lady who pitifully lamented the calamity which had "reduced her to elegance" indicated no slight deprivation; proper clothing for the occasions of life being both to men and women one of those great decencies demanded by an austere and suitable self-respect.

Faithfully did this good father and daughter fulfil to the last t.i.ttle the demands of their almost super-sensitive hearts and consciences, and if they sighed with relief when the duty was over, the sigh only proved the duty to have been beyond the line of self-satisfaction and a real sacrifice to the claims of a common humanity. Mr. Lanhearne then turned his thoughts gladly toward Florida. He felt that the invasion of so much strange sorrow into his home had altered its atmosphere, and that he was human enough to be a little weary in well-doing. Ada was also glad to escape the precincts haunted by the form and the voice which it pained her conscience to remember and pained her heart to forget. So in a few more days the large brown house was closed and dark, and "the tender grace of a day that was dead" was gone for evermore. The land of sunshine was before them, and many of their friends were already there to give them welcome; yet Ada's soul kept repeating, with a ceaseless, uncontrollable monotony, one sad lament--

"Ah, but alas! for the smile that never but one face wore!

Ah, for the voice that has flown away like a bird to an unknown sh.o.r.e!

Ah, for the face--the flower of flowers--that blossoms on earth no more!"

She tried to hush this inner voice, to reason it into silence, to dull its aching echo with song or speech or notes of loftier tones; but it would not be quieted. And when she was left alone, when there was no one near to comfort or strengthen, a great silence fell upon her. For she indulged no stormy sorrow; her grief was a still rain that fertilised and made fragrant her higher self. In her maiden heart she had had a dream of being crowned with bride-flowers, and lo! it was rue, and thyme gone to seed, and dead primroses that garlanded her sad, unspoken love. But she wore them with a sweet, brave submission, not affecting to disbelieve that time would surely heal love's aching pain. For she knew that goodness was omnipotent to save and to comfort.

In the mean time, as the Lanhearnes sailed southward Denas sailed eastward, and in less than a couple of weeks half the circ.u.mference of the world was between the lives so strangely and sorrowfully brought together. Denas landed in Liverpool early in the morning, and without delay went to London. She had business with Elizabeth, and she felt constrained and restless until it should be accomplished. She hesitated about going to the house in which she had spent with Roland so many happy and sorrowful days, but when she entered the cab the direction to it sprang naturally from her lips.

And there was already in her heart that tender fear that she might forget, the fear that all who have loved and lost have trembled to recognise, the fact that her sorrow might have an end, that she might learn to dispense with what was once her life, that a little vulgar existence with its stated meals and regular duties and petty pleasures would ever fill the void in her love and life made by Roland's death.

So she tried, in the very place of her sweet bride memories, to bring back the first pa.s.sion of her widowed grief. She tried to fill the empty chair with Roland's familiar form and the silent s.p.a.ce with his happy voice. Alas! other thoughts would intrude; considerations about Elizabeth's att.i.tude, about her home, about her future. For she knew that this part of her life was finished; that nothing could ever bring back its conditions. They had been absolutely barren conditions. Her duties as a wife and a mother were over. Her career as a singer was over. No single claim of friendship or interest from its past bound her. When she had seen Elizabeth these last years of her being and doing would be a shut book. Nothing but her change of name and, perhaps, a little money would remain to testify that Denas Penelles had ever been Denasia Tresham.

Do as she would, she could not keep these thoughts apart from her memories of her lover and her husband. She arrested her mind continually and bade herself remember the days of her gay bridal, or else those two lonely graves far beyond the western sea; and then, ere she was aware, her memories of the past had become speculations about the future. And she was abashed by this arid, incurable egotism in the most secret place of her soul. She felt it making itself known continually in her hard determination to make the best of things; she knew that it was this feeling which was determined to close the death chamber, to deny all torturing memories; which said, in effect, "what is finished is finished, and the dead are dead."

But the conflict wearied her almost to insensibility. She was also physically exhausted by travel, and the next day she slept profoundly until nearly the noon hour. It had been her intention to see Elizabeth in the morning, and she was provoked at her own remissness, for what she feared in reality happened--Elizabeth was out driving when she reached her residence. The porter thought it would be six o'clock ere she could receive any visitor, "business or no business."

Denas said she would call at six o'clock, and charged the man to tell his mistress so.

But the visit and the engagement pa.s.sed from the servant's mind. In fact, he had, as he claimed, a very genteel mind. Callers who came in a common cab did not find an entry into it. Elizabeth returned in due season from her drive, drank a cup of tea, and then made her evening toilet. For Lord Sudleigh was to dine with her, and Lord Sudleigh was the most important person in Elizabeth's life. It was her intention, as soon as she had paid the last t.i.ttle of mint, anise, and c.u.mmin to Mr. Burrell's memory, to become Lady Sudleigh. Everyone said it was a most proper alliance, the proposed bride having money and beauty and the bridegroom-elect birth, political influence, and quite as much love as was necessary to such a matrimonial contract.

Elizabeth, however, in spite of her pleasant prospect for the evening, was in a bad temper. The bishop's wife had snubbed her in the drive, and her dressmaker had disappointed her in a new costume. The March wind also had reddened her face, and perhaps she had a premonition of trouble, which she did not care to investigate. When informed that there was a lady waiting to see her on important business, she simply elected to let her wait until her toilet was finished. She had a conviction that it was some officious patroness on a charity mission--someone who wanted money for the good of other people. And as there are times when we all feel the claims of charity to be an unwarrantable imposition, so Elizabeth, blown-about, sun-browned, snubbed, disappointed, and anxious about her lover, was not, on this particular occasion, more to blame for want of courtesy than many others have been.

Finally she descended to the drawing-room and was ready to receive her visitor. There was a very large mirror in the room, and pending her entrance Elizabeth stood before it noticing the set and flow of her black lace dress, its heliotrope ribbons, and the sparkle of the hidden jets upon the bodice. Some heliotrope blossoms were in her breast, and her hands were covered with gloves of the same delicate colour. Denas saw her thus; saw her reflection in the gla.s.s before she turned to confront her.

For a moment Elizabeth was puzzled. The white face amid its sombre, heavy draperies had a familiarity she strove to name, but could not.

But as Denasia came forward, some trick of head-carriage or of walking revealed her personality, and Elizabeth cried out in a kind of angry amazement:

"Denas! You here?"

"I am no more Denas to you than you are Elizabeth to me."

"Well, then, Mrs. Tresham! And pray where is my brother?"

"Dead."

"Dead? dead? Impossible! And if so, it is your fault, I know it is! I had a letter from him--the last letter--he said he was coming to me."

She was frightfully pale; she staggered to a sofa, sat down, and covered her face with her gloved hands. Denasia stood by a table watching her emotion and half-doubting its genuineness. A silence followed, so deep and long that Elizabeth could not endure it. She stood up and looked at Denasia, reproach and accusation in every tone and att.i.tude. "Where did he die?" she asked.

"In New York."

"Of what did he die?"

"Of pneumonia."

"It was your fault, I am sure of it. Your fault in some way. My poor Roland! He had left you, I know that; and I hoped everything for his future."

"He had come back to me. He loved me better than ever. He died in my arms--died adoring me. His last work on earth was to give me this list of property, which I shall require you either to render back or to buy from me."

Elizabeth knew well what was wanted, and her whole soul was in arms at the demand. Yet it was a perfectly just one. By his father's will Roland had been left certain pieces of valuable personal property: family portraits and plate, two splendid cabinets, old china, Chinese and j.a.panese carvings, many fine paintings, antique chairs, etc., etc., the whole being property which had either been long in the Tresham family or endeared to it by special causes, and therefore left personally to Roland as the representative of the Treshams. At the break up of the Tresham home after his father's death, Roland had been glad to leave these treasures in Elizabeth's care, nor in his wandering life had the idea of claiming them ever come to him. As for their sale, that would have been an indignity to his ancestors below the contemplation of Roland.

Fortunately Mr. Tresham's lawyer had insisted upon Mrs. Burrell giving Roland a list of the articles left in her charge and an acknowledgment of Roland's right to them. "Life is so queer and has so many queer turns," he said, "that nothing can be left to likelihoods. Mrs.

Burrell is not likely to die, but she may do so; and then there may be a new Mrs. Burrell who may make trouble, and I can conceive of many other complications which would render nugatory the intentions of the late Mr. Tresham. The property must, therefore, be set behind the bulwark of the law." Elizabeth herself had acknowledged this danger, and she had done all that was required of her in order to keep the Tresham family treasures within the keeping of the Treshams.

She was now confronted with her own acknowledgment and agreement, or at least with a copy of it, and she was well aware that it would be the greatest folly to deny the claim of Roland's wife. But the idea of robbing her beautiful home for Denasia was very bitter to her. She glanced around the room and imagined the precious cabinets and china, the curious carvings and fine paintings taken away, and then the alternative, the money she would have to pay to Denasia if she retained them, came with equal force and clearness to her intelligence.

"Mrs. Tresham," she said in a conciliating voice, "these objects can be of no value to you."

"Roland told me they were worth at least two thousand pounds, perhaps more. There is a picture of Turner's, which of----"

"What do you know about Turner? And can you really entertain the thought of selling things so precious to our family?"

"Roland wished you to buy them. If you do not value them sufficiently to do so, why should I keep them? In my father's cottage they would be absurd."

"Your father's cottage? You are laughing at me!"

"I am too sorrowful a woman to laugh. A few weeks ago, if I had had only one of these pictures I would have sold it for a mouthful of bread--for a little coal to warm myself; oh, my G.o.d! for medicine to save my child's life or to ease his pa.s.sage to the grave."

"I had forgotten the child. Where is he?"

"By his father's side."

"That is well and best, doubtless."

"It is not well and best. What do you know? You have never been a mother. G.o.d never gave you such sorrowful grace."

"We will return to the list, if you please. What do you propose to do?"

"I have spoken to a man in Baker Street who deals in such things. If you wish to buy them and will pay their fair value I will sell them to you, because Roland desired you to have them. If you do not wish to buy them or will not pay a fair price I will remove them to Baker Street. There are others who will know their value."