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

"some one ought to take the money off it. And I think it be best to carry the gold to the superintendent; he will tell us what to do with it;" and, after some objections, Jacob took charge of the sinful coin, and the next morning he went up the cliff to St. Penfer with it.

The preacher heard the story with an intense interest. "Jacob," he answered, "I suppose there be none so poor in your village as to feel it might do them good?"

"Man, nor woman, nor child, would buy a loaf with it, sir; none of us men would let them. If Denas Penelles have gone out of the way, sir, she be a fisher's daughter, and the man and the money that beguiled her be hateful to all of us."

"Your chapel--is it not very poor?"

"Not poor enough to take the devil's coin, sir."

"Well, Jacob, I cannot say that I feel any more disposed to use it than you do. We know it was the wage of sin, and neither the service of God nor the poor will be the better for it. I think we will give it back to the young man. It may help to show him how his fellows regard the thing he did."

"That be the best way of all, sir. But he be in London, and hard to find no doubt."

"I will take it to his sister. I do not hold her quite guiltless."

So Jacob threw the sovereign on the preacher's desk, and it lay on the green baize, a yellow, evil-looking thing. For men love to make their thoughts palpable to their senses, and this bit of gold was visible sin--part of the price of a desolated home.

It was singular to see this same personification troubling the educated preacher as well as the unlearned fisherman. The Rev. William Farrar, when left alone with the unwelcome coin, looked askance at it. He did not like to see it on his desk, he had a repugnance to touch it. Then he forced himself to lift the sovereign, and by an elaborate fingering of the coin convince his intellect that he had no foolish superstition on the subject. Anon he took out his purse for its safe keeping, but suddenly, after a moment's hesitation, he snapped the clasp tight, and threw the bit of money on the chimney-piece. For a momentary flash of thought had brought vividly before him the sinful Babylonish garment which troubled the camp of Israel. Perhaps that sinful money might be equally malign to his own household.

He had resolved to take it to Mrs. Burrell in the afternoon, for the morning was his time for study and writing. But he found it impossible to think of his sermon. That sovereign on the mantelpiece was in all his thoughts. His back was to it, and yet he saw the dull shining disc. In spite of his reason and his faith, in spite of a very strong will and of a practiced command over himself, he felt the presence of the rejected coin to be a weight and an influence he could not pretend to ignore.

So he resolved to leave every other duty and go to Burrell Court, though it was a long walk, and the thick misty Cornish rain had begun to fall. Indeed, there was nothing but a vapourish shroud, a dim, grey chaos, as far as his eye could reach. The strip of road on which he trod was apparently the only land left to tread on--all the rest of creation had disappeared in a spectral mist. But above the mist the lark was singing joyously, singing for the song's sake, and the melody went down into his heart and preached him a better sermon than he was ever likely to write.

Listening to it, he reached, before he was aware, the great gates of the Court. Mrs. Burrell was at home, and he sent a request for an interview. Elizabeth instantly suspected that he had come on some affair relating to that wretched business. She was in trouble enough about it, but she was also proud and reticent, and not inclined to discuss Roland with a stranger.

Quite intentionally she gave to her manner a good deal of that haughtiness which young wives think dignity, but which is in reality the offensive freshness of new-made honour. The preacher offered her his hand, but she did not see it, being fully occupied in arranging the long train of cashmere, silk, and lace which, in those days, made morning dresses a misnomer.

"I am the Wesleyan preacher from St. Penfer, Mrs. Burrell."

"Can I do anything for you, sir? though really, if yours is a charitable visit, I must remind you that my own church looks to me for all I can possibly afford."

"I do not come, Mrs. Burrell, to ask for money. I bring you this sovereign, which belongs to Mr. Roland Tresham."

The gold fell from his fingers, spun round a few times, and, dropping upon the polished mahogany table, made a distinct clink.

"I do not understand you, Mr. Farrar."

The preacher hastened to make the circumstance more intelligible. He related the scene at the St. Clair chapel with a dramatic force that sprang from intense feeling, and Elizabeth listened to his solemn words with angry uneasiness. Yet she made an effort to treat the affair with unconcern.

"What have I to do with the sovereign, sir?" she asked. "I am not responsible for Mr. Tresham's acts. I did my best to prevent the disgrace that has befallen the fisherman's daughter."

"I think you are to blame in a great measure."

"Sir!"

"Yes. I am sure you are. You made a companion of the girl--I may say a friend."

"No, sir, not a friend. She was not my equal in any respect."

"Say a companion then. You taught her how to dress, how to converse, how to carry herself above her own class. You permitted her to wander about the garden with your brother."

"I always watched them."

"You let her talk to him--you let her sing with him."

"Never but when I was present. From the first I told her what Roland was--told her to mind nothing at all he said."

"If you had put a glass of cold water before a man dying of thirst, would you have been justified in telling him not to drink? You might even have added that the water contained poison; all the same, he would have drunk it, and your blame it would be for putting it within his reach."

"Indeed, Mr. Farrar, I will not take the blame of the creature's wickedness. It is a strange thing to be told that educating a girl and trying to lift her a step or two higher is a sin."

"It is a sin, madam, unless you persevere in it. God does not permit the rich, for their own temporary glory or convenience, to make experiments with an immortal soul, and then abandon it like a soiled glove or a game of which they have grown weary. What you began you ought in common justice to have carried on to such perfection as was possible. No circumstances could justify you in beguiling a girl from her natural protectors and then leaving her in the midst of danger alone."

"Sir, this is my affair, not yours. I beg leave to say that you know nothing whatever of the circumstances."

"Indeed, I know a great deal about them, and I can reasonably deduce a great deal more."

"And pray, sir, what do you deduce?"

"The right of Denas Penelles to have been retained as your companion. Having made a certain refinement of life necessary to her, you ought in common justice to have supplied the want you created."

"All this trouble arose when I was on my wedding-trip."

"I think you ought to have taken her with you."

"Sir!"

"I think so. It was hard to be suddenly deprived of every social pleasure and refinement and sent back to a fisher's cottage to cure fish, and knot nets, and knit fishing-shirts. How could you have borne it?"

"Mr. Farrar, such a comparison is an insult."

"I mean no insult; far from it. Even my office would give me no right to insult you. I only wish to awaken your conscience. Even yet it may take up your abandoned duty."

"Perhaps you do not know that I endeavoured last week to see Denas. I wrote to her. I asked her to come and see me. I told her I wanted to talk with her about Mr. Tresham. She did not even answer my letter. I consider myself clear of the ungrateful girl--and as I am busy this morning I will be obliged to you, sir, to excuse my further attendance. Take the sovereign with you; give it to the poor."

"God will feed His poor, madam."

She made a little scornful laugh and asked: "Do you really inquire into the character of all the money your church receives?"

"No further, madam, than you inquire into the character of the visitors you receive. Plenty of thieves and seducers are in every society, but it is not until a man is publicly known to be a thief or a seducer that we are justified in refusing him a courteous reception. A great deal of money is the wages of sin, and it passes through our hands and we are not stained by its contact; but if I give you a piece of gold and say, 'It is the price of a slain soul, or a slain body, or a slain reputation,' would you like to put it in your purse, or buy bread for your children with it, or take it to church and offer it to God? I wish you good-morning, Mrs. Burrell."

And Elizabeth bowed and stood watching him until the door was closed and she was alone with the coin. It offended her. It had been the cause of a most humiliating visit. She looked at it with scorn and loathing. A servant entered with a card; she took it eagerly, and pointing to the money said, "Carry it to Mr. Tresham's room and lay it upon the dressing-table." She was grateful to get it out of her sight, and very glad indeed to see the visitor who had given her such a prompt opportunity for ridding her eyes of its gleaming presence.

Thus it is that not only present but absent personalities rule us. In St. Penfer, Paul Pyn and Ann Bude, John and Joan Penelles, the Rev. Mr. Farrar and Mrs. Burrell, were all that morning governed in some degree by Roland's evilly spent sovereign; and he far off in London was in the hey-day of his honeymoon with Denas. They were so gay, so thoughtless and happy that people turned to look at them as they wandered through the bazars or stood laughing before the splendid windows in Regent Street. Many an old man and woman smiled sympathetically at them; for all the world loves a lover, and none could tell that these lovers had forfeited their right to sympathy by stealing their pleasure from those who ought to have shared it with them.

But as yet the world was only an accident of their love, and there was a whole week before them of unbroken and unsatiated delight--a whole week in which neither of them thought of the past or the future; in which every hour brought a fresh pleasure, something new to wear, or to see, or to hear.