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

wind in her teeth. And anon the tide turned, and the wind changed, and there was a lull, and so the nets were well shot, and they came back to harbour before the breeze just at cock-light--that is, when the cocks begin to crow for the dawning.

Thus petted and loved, the pretty girl made her way into all hearts, and when she said one day that she wanted to go to the school at St. Penfer and learn all about the strange seas and the strange lands that were in the world, her father and mother were quite thrilled by her great ambition. But she had her desire, and for three years she went to the private school at St. Penfer, and among the girls gathered there made many friends. Chief among these was Elizabeth Tresham, the daughter of a gentleman who had bought, with the salvage of a large fortune, the small Cornish estate on which he lived, or rather fretted away life in vain regrets over an irrevocable past. Elizabeth was his only daughter, but he had a son who was much older than Elizabeth--a handsome, gay young man about whom little was known in St. Penfer.

That little was not altogether favourable. It was understood that he painted pictures and played very finely on the piano, and every one could see that he dressed in the most fashionable manner and that he was handsome and light-hearted. But it could not be hid that he often came for money, which old Mr. Tresham had sometimes to borrow in St. Penfer for him. And business men noted the fact that his visits were so erratic and frequently so long in duration that it was hardly likely he had regular employment. And if a man had no private steady income, then for him to be without steady daily labour was considered in St. Penfer suspicious and not at all respectable. So in general Roland Tresham was treated with a shy courtesy, which at first he resented, but finally laughed at.

"Squire Peverall is afraid of his daughter and barely returns my bow, and the rector has sent his pretty Phyllis to St. Ives while I am here, Elizabeth," he said one night to his sister. "Phyllis is well enough, but she has not a shilling, and pray who would marry Clara Peverall with only a paltry twenty thousand?"

"Clara is a nice girl, Roland, and if you only would marry and settle down to a reasonable life, how happy I should be."

"Could I lead a more reasonable life, Elizabeth? I manage to get more pleasure out of a hundred pounds than some men get out of their thousands."

"And father and I carry the care of it."

"You are very foolish. Why carry care? I do not. I let the men to whom I owe money carry the care."

"But father cannot do that--nor can I. And to be in debt, in St. Penfer, is disreputable."

"Well, Elizabeth, is it reasonable that I should suffer for father's and your inability to be happy, or for the antiquated notions of such an antiquated town as St. Penfer? I am only twenty-nine, and the pleasures of life are necessities to me."

"I am only nineteen, Roland."

"But then you are a girl--that is such a different thing."

"Yes, it is a different thing," and Elizabeth laid down the piece of linen she was stitching and looked up at the handsome fellow who was leaning against the open window and puffing his cigar smoke out of it. She had the English girl's adoration of the eldest son, and likewise her natural submission to the masculine element. Besides which, she loved Roland with all her simple faith and affection. She loved him for his handsome self and his charming ways. She loved him because he had been her mother's idol, and she had promised her mother never to desert Roland. She loved him because he loved her in his own perfectly selfish way. She was just as willing to bear his troubles, and plan for their relief, and deny herself for his pleasure, as Roland was willing to accept the sacrifice. Of course she was foolish, perhaps sinfully foolish, and it is no excuse for her folly to admit that there are thousands of women in the same transgression.

In one of his visits to St. Penfer, about two years previous to this Easter Eve, Roland Tresham had met Denas Penelles. At that time he had been much interested in her. The little fisher-girl with her piquant face, her strange haunting voice, and her singular self-possession was a charming study. He made several sketches of her, he set her wild, sweet fisher-songs to music, he lent her books to read, he talked to her and Elizabeth of the wonderful London life which Elizabeth could partly remember, but which was like a fairy-tale to Denas.

Fortunately Elizabeth was jealous of her brother and jealous of her friend, and she never gave them any opportunity for private conversation. If Roland proposed to see Denas down the cliff-breast, Elizabeth was always delighted to go also. If Roland asked Denas to go into the garden to gather fruit or flowers, or into the drawing-room to sing her songs to his accompaniments, Elizabeth was faithfully at the side of Denas. She was actuated by a variety of motives. She wished her brother to make a prudent marriage. There were at least three young girls in the vicinity eligible, and Elizabeth believed that Roland had only to woo in order to win. Any entanglement with Denas, therefore, would be apt to delay such a settlement.

She liked Denas, and she did not wish to be the means of giving her a heartache or a disappointment. But she liked her as a friend and companion, not as a probable sister. Mr. Tresham in the days of his commercial glory had once been Lord Mayor of London. Mrs. Tresham had been "presented," and the grand house and magnificent entertainments of the Treshams were chronicled in newspapers, which Elizabeth highly valued and carefully treasured. She had also her full share of that all-pervading spirit of caste which divides English society into innumerable circles, and though she did not dislike the tacit offence she gave to the St. Penfer young ladies by selecting a companion not in their ranks, she was always ready to defend her friendship for Denas by an exaggerated description of her many fine qualities. On this subject she could air the extreme social views which she heard from Roland, and which she always passionately opposed when Roland advocated them; but she was not any more ready to put her ideas of an equality based on personal desert into practice than was the most bigoted aristocrat of her acquaintance.

There was also another motive for her care of Denas, a strong one, though Elizabeth's mind barely recognised its existence. John Penelles, though only a fisher, was a man who had influence and who had saved money. Once when Mr. Tresham had been in a great strait for cash, Penelles, remembering Denas, had cheerfully loaned him a hundred pounds. Elizabeth recollected her father's anxiety and his relief and gratitude, and a friend who will open, not his heart or his house, but his purse, is a rare good friend, one not to be lightly wronged or lost. Besides these reasons, there were many smaller ones, arising out of petty social likes and dislikes and jealousies, which made Miss Tresham determined to keep Denas Penelles precisely in the position to which she had at first admitted her--that of a friend and companion.

To visitors she often used the adjective "humble" before the noun "friend," glossing it with a somewhat exaggerated account of Denas and their relationship, but with Denas herself she never thought of such qualification. Denas had all the native independence of her class--the fisher class, who neither sow nor reap, but take their living direct from the hand of God. She was proud of her father, and proud of his boats, and proud of his skill in managing them. She said, whenever she spoke of him: "My father is an upright man. He is a fine sailor and a lucky fisher. Every one trusts my father. Every one honours him."

Of course Denas recognised the differences in her friend's life and her own. Mr. Tresham's old stone mansion was large and lofty. It had fine gardens, and it had been well furnished from the wreck of the London house. Elizabeth played on the harp and piano in a pretty, fashionable way, and she had jewelry, and silk dresses, and many adornments quite outside of the power of Denas to obtain. But Denas never envied her these things. She looked on them as the accidentals of a certain station, and God had not put her in that station. In her own she had the very best of all that belonged to it. And as far as personal adornment went, she was neither vain nor envious. Her dark-blue merino dress and her wide straw hat satisfied her ideas of propriety and beauty. A shell comb in her fair hair and a few white hyacinths at her throat were all the ornaments she desired. So dressed that Easter Eve, she had stood a moment with her hat in her hand before her mother, and asked, with a merry little movement of her eyes and head, "what she thought of her?" and Joan Penelles had told her child promptly:

"You be sweet as blossoms, Denas."

There was an engagement between her and Elizabeth to adorn the altar for the Resurrection Service, and it was mainly this duty which had delayed her until John Penelles began to worry about her long absence. He did not ask himself why he had all in a moment thought of Roland Tresham and felt a shiver of apprehension. He was not accustomed to reason about his feelings, it was so much easier to go to Joan with them. But this evening Joan did not quite satisfy him. He drank his tea and ate plentifully of his favourite pie, of fresh fish and cream and young parsley, and then said:

"Joan, my dear, I have an over-mind to light my pipe and saunter up the cliff-breast. I may meet Denas."

"I wish you wouldn't go, father. It do look as if you had lost trust in Denas--misdoubting one's own is a whist poor business and not worth the following."

"Aw, my dear, I just want to talk a few words to her quiet-like. If Denas is companying with Roland Tresham she oughtn't to do it, and I must tell her so, that I must. My dear girl, right is right in the devil's teeth."

He said the words so sternly that they seemed to make a gloom in the cottage, but Joan's cheerful laugh cleared it away. "You be such a dear, good, careful father, John," she said, as she tucked in with a caressing movement the long ends of his kerchief. "I was only thinking that if it be good to watch, it is far better to trust--there then, isn't it, father?"

"Why, my dear, I'll watch first and I'll trust after--that's right enough, isn't it, Joan?"

Joan sighed and smiled, and Penelles, with his pipe in his mouth, turned his face landward. Joan thought a moment and then called to him:

"Father! Paul Tynton is very bad to-day. He was taken ill when the moon was three days old; men die who sicken on that day. Hadn't you better call and speak a word with him? He is in your class, you know."

"He was taken when the moon was four days old; he'll have a hard little time,