C. C.
Days ensued, not of rest to body, but of relaxation to mind. Judith's
overstrained nerves had now given them a period of numbness, a sleep
of sensibility with occasional turnings and wakenings, in which they
recovered their strength. She and Jamie were settled into their rooms
at Mr. Menaida's, and the hours were spent in going to and from the
rectory removing their little treasures to the new home--if a
temporary place of lodging could be called a home--and in arranging
them there.
There were a good many farewells to be taken, and Judith marvelled
sometimes at the insensibility with which she said them--farewells to
a thousand nooks and corners of the house and garden, the shrubbery,
and the glebe farm, all endeared by happy recollections, now having
their brightness dashed with rain.
To Judith this was a first revelation of the mutability of things on
earth. Hitherto, as a child, with a child's eyes and a child's
confidence, she had regarded the rectory, the glebe, the contents of
the house, the flowers in the garden, as belonging inalienably to her
father and brother and herself. They belonged to them together. There
was nothing that was her father's that did not belong to Jamie and to
her, nothing of her brother's or her own that was not likewise the
property of papa. There was no mine or thine in that little family of
love--save only a few birthday presents given from one to the other,
and these only special property by a playful concession. But now the
dear father was gone, and every right seemed to dissolve. From the
moment that he leaned back against the brick, lichen-stained wall, and
sighed--and was dead, house and land had been snatched from them. And
though the contents of the rectory, the books, and the furniture, and
the china belonged to them, it was but for a little while; these
things must be parted with also, turned into silver.
Not because the money was needed, but because Judith had no settled
home, and no prospect of one. Therefore she must not encumber herself
with many belongings. For a little while she would lodge with Mr.
Menaida, but she could not live there forever; she must remove
elsewhere, and she must consider, in the first place, that there was
not room in Uncle Zachie's cottage for accumulations of furniture, and
that, in the next place, she would probably have to part with them on
her next remove, even if she did retain them for a while.
If these things were to be parted with, it would be advisable to part
with them at once. But to this determination Judith could not bring
herself at first. Though she had put aside, to be kept, things too
sacred to her, too much part of her past life, to be allowed to go
into the sale, after a few days she relinquished even these. Those six
delightful old colored prints, in frames, of a fox-hunt--how Jamie had
laughed at them, and followed the incidents in them, and never wearied
of them--must they go--perhaps for a song? It must be so. That
work-table of her mother's, of dark rosewood, with a crimson bag
beneath it to contain wools and silks, one of the few remembrances she
had of that mother whom she but dimly recalled--must that go?--what,
and all those skeins in it of colored floss silk, and the piece of
embroidery half finished? the work of her mother, broken off by
death--that also? It must be so. And that rusty leather chair in which
papa had sat, with one golden-headed child on each knee cuddled into
his breast, with the flaps of his coat drawn over their heads, which
listened to the tick-tick of his great watch, and to the tale of
Little Snowflake, or Gracieuse and Percinet?--must that go also? It
must be so.
Every day showed to Judith some fresh link that had to be broken. She
could not bear to think that the mother's work-table should be
contended for at a vulgar auction, and struck down to a blousy
farmer's wife; that her father's chair should go to some village inn
to be occupied by sots. She would rather have seen them destroyed; but
to destroy them would not be right.
After a while she longed for the sale; she desired to have it over,
that an entirely new page of life might be opened, and her thoughts
might not be carried back to the past by everything she saw.
Of Coppinger nothing further was seen. Nor did Aunt Dionysia appear at
the rectory to superintend the assortment of the furniture, nor at Mr.
Menaida's to inquire into the welfare of her nephew and niece. To
Judith it was a relief not to have her aunt in the parsonage while she
was there; that hard voice and unsympathetic manner would have kept
her nerves on the quiver. It was best as it was, that she should have
time, by herself, with no interference from any one, to select what
was to be kept and put away what was to be sold; to put away gently,
with her own trembling hand, and with eyes full of tears, the old
black gown and the Oxford hood that papa had worn in church, and to
burn his old sermons and bundles of letters, unread and uncommented on
by Aunt Dunes.
In these days Judith did not think much of Coppinger. Uncle Zachie
informed her that he was worse, he was confined to his bed, he had
done himself harm by coming over to Polzeath the day after his
accident, and the doctor had ordered him not to stir from Pentyre
Glaze for some time--not till his bones were set. Nothing was known of
the occasion of Coppinger's injuries, so Uncle Zachie said; it was
reported in the place that he had been thrown from his horse. Judith
entreated the old man not to enlighten the ignorance of the public;
she was convinced that naught would transpire through Jamie, who could
not tell a story intelligibly; and Miss Dionysia Trevisa was not
likely to publish what she knew.
Judith had a pleasant little chamber at Mr. Menaida's; it was small,
low, plastered against the roof, the rafters showing, and whitewashed
like the walls and ceiling. The light entered from a dormer in the
roof, a low window glazed with diamond quarries set in lead that
clickered incessantly in the wind. It faced the south, and let the sun
flow in. A scrap of carpet was on the floor, and white curtains to the
window. In this chamber Judith ranged such of her goods as she had
resolved on retaining, either as indispensable, or as being too dear
to her to part with unnecessarily, and which, as being of small size,
she might keep without difficulty.
Her father's old travelling trunk, covered with hide with the hair
on, and his initials in brass nails--a trunk he had taken with him to
college--was there, thrust against the wall; it contained her clothes.
Suspended above it was her little bookcase, with the shelves laden
with "The Travels of Rolando," Dr. Aitkin's "Evenings at Home,"
Magnal's "Questions," a French Dictionary, "Paul and Virginia," and a
few other works such as were the delight of children from ninety to a
hundred years ago.
Books for children were rare in those days, and such as were produced
were read and re-read till they were woven into the very fibre of the
mind, never more to be extricated and cast aside. Now it is otherwise.
A child reads a story-book every week, and each new story-book effaces
the impression produced by the book that went before. The result of
much reading is the same as the result of no reading--the production
of a blank.
How Judith and Jamie had sat together perched up in a sycamore, in
what they called their nest, and had revelled in the adventures of
Rolando, she reading aloud, he listening a little, then lapsing into
observation of the birds that flew and hopped about, or the insects
that spun and crept, or dropped on silky lines, or fluttered humming
about the nest, then returned to attention to the book again! Rolando
would remain through life the friend and companion of Judith. She
could not part with the four-volumed, red-leather-backed book.
For the first day or two Jamie had accompanied his sister to the
rectory, and had somewhat incommoded her by his restlessness and his
mischief, but on the third day, and thenceforth, he no longer attended
her. He had made fast friends with Uncle Zachie. He was amused with
watching the process of bird-stuffing, and the old man made use of the
boy by giving him tow to pick to pieces and wires to straighten.
Mr. Menaida was pleased to have some one by him in his workshop to
whom he could talk. It was unimportant to him whether the listener
followed the thread of his conversation or not, so long as he was a
listener. Mr. Menaida, in his solitude, had been wont to talk to
himself, to grumble to himself at the impatience of his customers, to
lament to himself the excess of work that pressed upon him and
deprived him of time for relaxation. He was wont to criticise, to
himself, his success or want of success in the setting-up of a bird.
It was far more satisfactory to him to be able to address all these
remarks to a second party.
He was, moreover, surprised to find how keen and just had been Jamie's
observation of birds, their ways, their attitudes. Judith was
delighted to think that Jamie had discovered talent of some sort, and
he had, so Uncle Zachie assured her, that imitative ability which is
often found to exist alongside with low intellectual power, and this
enabled him to assist Mr. Menaida in giving a natural posture to his
birds.
It flattered the boy to find that he was appreciated, that he was
consulted, and asked to assist in a kind of work that exacted nothing
of his mind.
When Uncle Zachie was tired of his task, which was every ten minutes
or quarter of an hour, and that was the extreme limit to which he
could continue regular work, he lit his pipe, left his bench, and sat
in his arm-chair. Then Jamie also left his tow-picking or
wire-punching, and listened, or seemed to listen, to Mr. Menaida's
talk. When the old man had finished his pipe, and, with a sigh, went
back to his task, Jamie was tired of hearing him talk, and was glad to
resume his work. Thus the two desultory creatures suited each other
admirably, and became attached friends.
"Jamie! what is the meaning of this?" asked Judith, with a start and a
rush of blood to her heart.
She had returned in the twilight from the parsonage. There was
something in the look of her brother, something in his manner that was
unusual.
"Jamie! What have you been taking? Who gave it you?"
She caught the boy by the arm. Distress and shame were in her face, in
the tones of her voice.
Mr. Menaida grunted.
"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped--really it can't," said he,
apologetically. "But Captain Coppinger has sent me down a present of a
keg of cognac--real cognac, splendid, amber-like--and, you know, it was
uncommonly kind. He never did it before. So there was no avoidance; we
had to tap it and taste it, and give a sup to the fellow who brought
us the keg, and drink the health of the Captain. One could not be
churlish; and, naturally, I could not abstain from letting Jamie try
the spirit. Perfectly pure--quite wholesome--first-rate quality. Upon
my word, he had not more than a fly could dip his legs in and feel the
bottom; but he is unaccustomed to anything stronger than cider, and
this is stronger than I supposed."
"Mr. Menaida, you promised me--"
"Bless me! There are contingencies, you know. I never for a moment
thought that Captain Coppinger would show me such a favor, would have
such courtesy. But, upon my honor, I think it is your doing, my dear!
You shook hands and made peace with him, and he has sent this in token
of the cessation of hostilities and the ratification of the
agreement."
"Mr. Menaida, I trusted you. I did believe, when you passed your word
to me, that you would hold to it."
"Now--there, don't take it in that way. Jamie, you rascal, hop off to
bed. He'll be right as a trivet to-morrow morning, I stake my
reputation on that. There, there, I will help him up-stairs."
Judith suffered Mr. Menaida to do as he proposed. When he had left the
room with Jamie, who was reluctant to go, and struggled to remain, she
seated herself on the sofa, and covering her face with her hands burst
into tears. Whom could she trust? No one.
Had she been alone in the world she would have been more confident of
the future, been able to look forward with a good courage; but she had
to carry Jamie with her, who must be defended from himself, and from
the weak good-nature of those he was with.
When Uncle Zachie came down-stairs he slunk into his workroom and was
very quiet. No lamp or candle was lighted, and it was too dark for him
to continue his employment on the birds. What was he doing? Nothing.
He was ashamed of himself, and keeping out of Judith's way.
But Judith would not let him escape so easily; she went to him, as he
avoided her, and found him seated in a corner turning his pipe about.
He had been afraid of striking a light, lest he should call her
attention to his presence.
"Oh, my dear, come in here into the workshop to me! This is an honor,
an unexpected pleasure. Jamie and I have been drudging like slaves all
day, and we're fagged--fagged to the ends of our fingers and toes."
"Mr. Menaida, I am sorry to say it, but if such a thing happens again
as has taken place this evening, Jamie and I must leave your house. I
thank you with an overflowing heart for your goodness to us; but I
must consider Jamie above everything else, and I must see that he be
not exposed to temptation."
"Where will you take him?"
"I cannot tell; but I must shield him."
"There, there, not a word! It shall never happen again. Now let
by-gones be by-gones, and play me something of Beethoven, while I sit
here and listen in the twilight."
"No, Mr. Menaida, I cannot. I have not the spirit to do it. I can
think only of Jamie."
"So you punish me!"
"Take it so. I am sorry; but I cannot do otherwise."
"Now, look here! Bless my soul! I had almost forgotten it. Here is a
note for you, from the Captain, I believe." He went to the
chimney-piece and took down a scrap of paper, folded and sealed.
Judith looked at it and went to the window, broke the seal, and opened
the paper. She read--
"Why do you not come and see me? You do not care for what you
have done. They call me cruel; but you are that.--C. C."