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

surprise. Something happened, and the days of his waiting were over, and he was to be married immediately. Then it was, in Cornish phrase, "busy all" to get the yacht overhauled and well victualled. For the young couple were going to spend the winter on the Mediterranean coasts, and Tris was as much interested in the preparations as was possible to be, even though the unexpected change disarranged and postponed his own plans.

For there had absolutely been in Tris' mind a resolution to marry Denas before he went on the winter's cruise. Of course, in making this resolution he had never taken into account the contrary plans of Denas and Joan, neither of whom was disposed to make any haste about the marriage.

"Love do soon die if there be no house for him to live in," said Joan; "and I do feel to think that the furnishing of the house be the first thing. And that not to be done in a week or a month, either. Ham-sam work have no blessing or happiness with it. To be sure not. Why would it?"

Denas held the same opinions, so Tris went away and left the furnishing of the house to Denas and Joan. They would have all the winter to prepare the napery and crockery and consult about carpets and furniture. For now that he was to become a married man and a householder, Tris was quite inclined to take all the domestic and social consideration his position gave him. Mr. Arundel, in placing such a pretty home at the service of his captain, required by the very gift a suitable acceptance of it.

And no one but a mother can tell with what delightful pride Joan entered into this duty. She had never bought carpets and stuffed furniture before. The china tea-service would not let her sleep for three nights, she was so divided between the gold and white and the pink and gold. All the little niceties of the dining-room and the sitting-room--the American kitchen utensils which to Joan seemed marvellous and beautiful, the snowy curtains at every window, the white-handled knives and the plated silver--all these things held joys and surprises and never-ending interest to the happy mother.

Between these duties and her school, the long winter months passed happily away to Denas. The school, indeed, troubled her in a certain way. Who was to keep it together? John also had formed it into a Sunday-school and was greatly delighted with the work. But a really good work never falls through; there is always someone to carry it on, and one day Denas was visited among her pupils by the Wesleyan preacher from St. Penfer. He was astonished at her methods and her success, and he represented the claims of such a school with so much force to the next district meeting that they gladly appointed a teacher to fill the place of Denas. It cost her a little pang to resign her authority; but her marriage was drawing near, and it would necessarily be followed by her removal to St. Clair, and it was important that the children should be provided for.

About the end of March she had a letter from Tris. The yacht was then at Gibraltar on its return passage, and Tris might be looked for within a few days. But the house was nearly ready and all her personal preparations were made. Such as pertained to the ceremony and their future life they would make together when Tris returned home. Never had father, and mother, and daughter, been so happy and so closely one. Joan had grown young again. John sang from morning to night. Denas had the loveliness of love transfiguring the loveliness of mere physical beauty. It was busy all and happy all within the Penelles' cottage during those days of expectation.

One morning Joan was going through the whole house before the grand final preparations, and for some reason she opened a closet usually little regarded--a closet full of those odds and ends families do not like to destroy. The first thing she lifted was that picture of Denas as "Mademoiselle Denasia in Pinafore." It had been her pride and comfort in sorrowful days now overpast, and she laid it upon the table and stood looking at it. Denas entered the room while this act of tender reminiscence was going on. She did not at first perceive or understand the object of it. But when she reached her mother's side and saw the yellow, faded presentment, her face flushed crimson, and with flashing eyes she covered the picture with her hands.

"Why did you keep it? Oh, mother, how could you!"

"Aw, then, Denas, 'twas my only comfort many a day and many a time. Don't take it away--Denas! Denas!"

"I will not have it in the house--'tis a shame to me; it breaks my heart; how could you, mother?" and she drew the paper away, and walking to the fire, threw it upon the coals. It burned slowly, browning gradually from the dancing feet to the tips of the fingers meeting above the head.

With a white, sad face she watched it burn to a brown film that the upward draught of the chimney carried out of her sight. Joan also watched the immolation, and she was a little angry at it. That picture of Mademoiselle Denasia was one of Joan's secret idols. No one likes to watch the destruction of their idols, and Joan was hardly pacified by the kisses and loving words with which Denas extenuated her act. For an hour or two she had an air of injury. She had been in the habit of showing this picture with an air of serious secrecy and with many sighs to any new acquaintance or strange visitor, and its destruction really put a stop to this clandestine bit of egotism; for who would believe such an improbable story without the pictured Denasia to prove it?

Denas regarded the incident as a happy omen. As she watched the picture turn to cinder, she buried fathoms deep below the tide of her present life all the restless, profitless, half-regretful memories it represented. A word or two said by the preacher the day he visited her school had clung to her consciousness as a burr clings to wool. They were speaking of the education necessary for the class of children gathered there, and Denas, after naming the studies pursued, said: "They are sufficient for the life before them;" then, with an involuntary sigh, she added, "It is a very narrow life."

And perhaps the minister had heard something of her story, for he answered gravely: "God knows just where He wants every soul. That is the life, that is the school, for that soul, and no life is too narrow. The humblest will afford


"'The common round, the trivial task
Which furnish all we ought to ask--
Room to deny ourselves.'


Mrs. Tresham, that is the grand lesson we are sent here to learn; self-denial, as against self-pleasing and self-assertion."

Denas only said, "Yes, sir;" but she took the words into her heart and found herself repeating them a hundred times a day.

Tris came home just before Easter. The spring was in his heart, the spring was in his life and love. The winds, the young trees, the peeping crocus-buds, were part and parcel of Denas and of his hopes in her. What charming walks they took to their home! What suggestions and improvements and alterations they made! No two young thrushes, building their first nest, could have been more interested and more important. Mr. and Mrs. Arundel had remained in town for the Easter holidays, and Tris was very nearly lord of all his time. He rather thought Mr. Arundel had purposely left him so at this happy epoch, and the idea gave him the more pleasure in his light duties.

There was a great deal of good-natured discussion about the proper date for this wonderful wedding. Tris acted as if it was the first wedding in the world. He was sure everyone in St. Penfer and St. Clair would be disappointed beyond comfort unless they had a chance to be present. He thought, therefore, that Easter Sunday would be the day of days in this respect. All the boats would be in harbour. All the women and children would have their new gowns and bonnets on. There would be a special service in the chapel--and then, finally:

"The house be ready, mother, and I be ready, and Denas be ready, and what are we waiting for?"

And as John, and Joan, and Tris were of one mind, what could Denas do but be of the same mind? After all, the great anxiety was the weather. The restless way in which Tris queried of the winds and watched the clouds almost made John angry. "You do be enough to beckon a storm, Tris," he cried. "Let be! Let be!" Yet for all that John himself walked oftener to his door than was his custom, and looked seaward and windward in a furtive kind of way, very amusing to the women, who saw clearly through his anxiety.

But even the weather sometimes comes up to our hopes and is even better than our expectations. Easter Sunday broke in a royal mood of sunshine. There was not a breath of wind; the sea was like a sea of sapphire sprinked with incalculable diamonds; the boats lay lazily swinging on the tide-top; the undercliff was in its Easter green and white. The lark set the bride-song going, and so woke up the thrush, and the thrush called to the blackbird, and the woods soon rang with music.

The ceremony was to be in the St. Clair chapel, and at nine o'clock Tris came in the yacht's boat for his bride and her parents. The boat had been freshly painted white. The four sailors who were to row her were in snow-white duck and blue caps and kerchiefs. Tris had on his best uniform--blue broadcloth and gilt buttons. Tris was handsome enough and proud and happy enough to have set off a fisher's suit of blue flannel; but he trod like a prince and looked like a young sea-god in his splendid array.

It had been thought best for the bride to go to St. Clair by sea. There was no carriage available, and the walk to St. Clair was long and apt to be wet from the last tide. And nobody wanted the bride-dress to be soiled. Besides which, the sea-way gave the St. Penfer people an opportunity to set her off with waving kerchiefs and a thousand good wishes; and it also gave the people of St. Clair an opportunity to welcome her in the same manner. Those who did not know about such things and who were wickedly reckless concerning signs and omens--which sailor and fisher folk never are--said this seaward road to the church might have been avoided and the bride's gown kept sweetly fresh and unruffled by Denas simply dressing in her own house. But Denas knew well that it was unlucky; for the bride in her bride-dress must go into her house before she comes out of it.

The chapel was crowded up to the pulpit steps, all but John's pew, which was empty until the bride's party took possession of it. It was a sight to make men and women happy only to look at Joan Penelles' face. John tried to preserve a grave look, but Joan beamed upon every man and woman present. When the little stir of their entrance had subsided, then the Easter service went joyously on. It was known that the wedding was to be solemnized between the