In the Roar of the Sea Part 77

"I have been shown your letter."

"Oh! Obadiah Scantlebray is premature."

"He is not at Oth.e.l.lo Cottage yet. His brother came beforehand to prepare me."

"How considerate of your feelings," sneered Captain Cruel. "I would not have expected that of Scantlebray."

"You have not awaited my decision," said Judith.

"That is true," answered Coppinger, carelessly. "I knew you would shrink from the exposure, the disgrace of publication of what has occurred here. I knew you so well that I could reckon beforehand on what you would elect."

"But, why to Scantlebray? Are there not other asylums?"

"Yes: so long as that boy is placed where he can do no mischief, I care not."

"Then, if that be so, I have another proposal to make."

"What is that?" Coppinger stood up.

"If you have any regard for my feelings, any care for my happiness, you will grant my request."

"Let me hear it."

"Mr. Menaida is going to Portugal."

"What!"--in a tone of concentrated rage--"Oliver?"

"Oliver and his father. But the proposal concerns the father."

"Go on." Coppinger strode once across the room, then back again. "Go on," he said, savagely.

"Old Mr. Menaida offers to take Jamie with him. He intends to settle at Oporto, near his son, who has been appointed to a good situation there. He will gladly undertake the charge of Jamie. Let Jamie go with them. There he can do no harm."

"What, go--without you! Did they not want you to go, also?"

Judith hesitated and flushed. There was a single tallow candle on the table. Coppinger took it up, snuffed it, and held the flame to her face to study its expression. "I thought so," he said, and put down the light again.

"Jamie is useful to Mr. Menaida," pleaded Judith, in some confusion, and with a voice of tremulous apology.

"He stuffs birds so beautifully, and Uncle Zachie--I mean Mr.

Menaida--has set his heart on making a collection of the Spanish and Portuguese birds."

"Oh, yes; he understands the properties of a.r.s.enic," said Coppinger, with a scoff.

Judith's eyes fell. Captain Cruel's tone was not rea.s.suring.

"You say that you care not where Jamie be, so long as he is where he cannot hurt you," said Judith.

"I did not say that," answered Coppinger. "I said that he must be placed where he can injure no one."

"He can injure no one if he is with Mr. Menaida, who will well watch him, and keep him employed."

Coppinger laughed bitterly. "And you? Will you be satisfied to have the idolized brother with the deep seas rolling between you?"

"I must endure it. It is the least of evils."

"But you would be pining to have wings and fly over the sea to him."

"If I have not wings I cannot go."

"Now hearken," said Coppinger. He clinched his fist and laid it on the table. "I know very well what this means. Oliver Menaida is at the bottom of this. It is not the fool Jamie who is wanted in Portugal, but the clever Judith. They have offered to take the boy, that through him they may attract you, unless," his voice thrilled, "they have already dared to propose that you should go with them."

Judith was silent.

Coppinger clinched his second hand and laid that also on the table. "I swear to heaven," said he, "that if I and that Oliver Menaida meet again, it is for the last time for one or other of us. We have met twice already. It is an understood thing between us, when we meet again, one wets his boots in the other's blood. Do you hear? The world will not hold us two any longer. Portugal may be far off, but it is too near Cornwall for me."

Judith made no answer. She looked fixedly into the gloomy eyes of Coppinger, and said--

"You have strange thoughts. Suppose--if you will--that the invitation included me, I could not have accepted it."

"Why not! You refuse to regard yourself as married, and if unmarried, you are free--and if free, ready to elope with----" he would not utter the name in his quivering fury.

"I pray you," said Judith, offended, "do not insult me."

"I--insult you? It is a daily insult to me to be treated as I have been. It is driving me mad."

"But, do you not see," urged Judith, "you have offered me two alternatives and I ask for a third, yours are jail or an asylum, mine is exile. Both yours are to me intolerable. Conceive of my state were Jamie either in jail or with Mr. Scantlebray. In jail--and I should be thinking of him all day and all night in his prison garb, tramping the tread-mill, beaten, driven on, a.s.sociated with the vilest of men, an indelible stain put, not on him only, but on the name of our dear, dear father. Do you think I could bear that? or take the other alternative? I know the Scantlebrays. I should have the thoughts of Jamie distressed, frightened, solitary, ill-treated, ever before me. I had it for a few hours once and it drove me frantic. It would make me mad in a week. I know that I could not endure it. Either alternative would madden or kill me. And I offer another--if he were in exile, I could at least think of him as happy among the orange groves, in the vineyards, among kind friends, happy, innocent--at worst, forgetting me. _That_ I could bear. But the other--no, not for a week--they would be torture insufferable." She spoke full of feverish vehemence, with her hands outspread before her.

"And this smiling vision of Jamie happy in Portugal would draw your heart from me."

"You never had my heart," said Judith.

Coppinger clinched his teeth. "I will hear no more of this," said he.

Then Judith threw herself on her knees, and caught him and held him, lifting her entreating face toward his.

"I have undergone it--for some hours. I know it will madden or kill me. I cannot--I cannot--I cannot," she could scarce breathe, she spoke in gasps.

"You cannot what?" he asked, sullenly.

"I cannot live on the terms you offer. You take from me even the very wish to live. Take away the a.r.s.enic from me--lest in madness I give it to myself. Take me far inland from these cliffs--lest in my madness I throw myself over--I could not bear it. Will nothing move you?"

"Nothing." He stood before her, his feet apart, his arms folded, his chin on his breast, looking into her uplifted, imploring face.

"Yes--one thing. One thing only." He paused, raking her face with his eyes. "Yes--one thing. Be mine wholly--unconditionally. Then I will consent. Be mine; add your name where it is wanting. Resume your ring--and Jamie shall go with the Menaidas. Now, choose."

He drew back. Judith remained kneeling, upright, on the floor with arms extended--she had heard and at first hardly comprehended him.

Then she staggered to her feet.

"Well," said Coppinger, "what answer do you make?" Still she could not speak. She went to the table with uncertain steps. There was a wooden form by it. She seated herself on this, placed her arms on the board, joining her hands, and laid her head, face downward, between them on the table.