A Singer from the Sea, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [best story books to read TXT] 📗

to ride, she made allowance for his taking lunch with Caroline Burrell, and she concluded that he ought to have been at the trysting-place before she was. She waited until four o'clock, growing more angry every moment, then she hastened away. "I am right served," she muttered. "I will let Roland Tresham and Elizabeth Burrell alone for the future." The tide of anger rose swiftly in her heart, and she stepped homeward to its flow.

She had gone but a little way when she heard Roland calling her. She would not answer him. She heard his rapid footsteps behind, but she would not turn her head. When he reached her he was already vexed at her perverse mood. "I could not get here sooner, Denas," he said crossly. "Do be reasonable."

"You need not have come at all."

"Denas, stop: Listen to me. If you walk so quickly we shall be seen from the village."

"I wish father to see us. I will call him to come to me."

"Denas, what have I done?"

"You! You are a part of the whole. Your sister has taught me to-day the difference between us. I am glad there is a difference--I intend to forget you both from this day."

"Will you punish me because Elizabeth was unkind?"

"Some day you also will change just as she has done. I will not wait for that day. No, indeed! To be sure, I shall suffer. Father, mother, everybody suffers in one way or another. I can bear as much as others can."

"You are an absurd little thing. Come, darling! Come back with me! I want to tell you a very particular secret."

"Do you think you can pet, or coax, or tell me tales like a cross child? I am a woman, and I have been hurt in every place a woman can be hurt by your sister. I will not go back with you."

"Very well, Denas. You will repent this temper, I can tell you, my dear."

"No, I shall not repent it. I will go to my father and mother. I will tell them how bad I have been and ask them to forgive me. I shall never repent that, I know."

She drew her arm from his clasp and, without lifting her eyes to him, went forward with a swift, purposeful step. He watched her a few moments, and then with a dark countenance turned homeward. "This is Elizabeth's doing," he muttered. "Elizabeth is too, too detestably respectable for anything. I saw and felt her sugared patronage of Denas through all her soft phrases; she treats me in the same way sometimes. When women get a husband they are conceited enough, but when they get a husband and money also they are--the devil only knows what they are."

He entered Elizabeth's presence very sulkily. Robert was in London and there was no reason why he should keep his temper in the background. "There is Caroline's answer," he said, throwing a letter on the table, "and I do wish, Elizabeth, you would send me pleasanter errands in the future. Caroline kept me waiting until she returned from a lunch at Colonel Prynne's. And then she hurried me away because there was to be a grand dinner-party at the Pullens'."

"At the Pullens'? It is very strange Robert and I were not invited."

"I should say very strange indeed, seeing that Caroline is their guest. But Lord and Lady Avonmere were to be present, and of course they did not want any of us."

"Any of us? Pray, why not?"

"Father's bankruptcy is not forgotten. We were nobodies 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, passes 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 Saturday 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 passer-by. But these footsteps stopped at John's door and then went inside the cottage. That circumstance 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 passionately. "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 assertions 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.