THROUGH THE TAMARISKS.
For some time after Judith had given her consent, and had released
Jamie from the hands of the Scantlebrays, she remained still and
white. Uncle Zachie missed the music to which he had become used, and
complained. She then seated herself at the piano, but was distraught,
played badly, and the old bird-stuffer went away grumbling to his
shop.
Jamie was happy, delighted not to be afflicted with lessons, and
forgot past troubles in present pleasures. That the recovery of his
liberty had been bought at a heavy price, he did not know, and would
not have appreciated it had he been told the sacrifice Judith had been
ready to make for his sake.
In the garden behind the cottage was an arbor, composed of half a boat
set up, that is to say, an old boat sawn in half, and erected so that
it served as a shelter to a seat, which was fixed into the earth on
posts. From one side of this boat a trellis had been drawn, and
covered with eschalonia, and a seat placed here as well, so that in
this rude arbor it was possible for more than one to find
accommodation. Here Judith and Jamie often sat; the back of the boat
was set against the prevailing wind from the sea, and on this coast
the air is unusually soft at the same time that it is bracing,
enjoyable wherever a little shelter is provided against its violence.
For violent it can be, and can buffet severely, yet its blows are
those of a pillow.
Here Judith was sitting one afternoon, alone, lost in a dream, when
Uncle Zachie came into the garden with his pipe in his mouth, to
stretch his legs, after a few minutes' work at stuffing a cormorant.
In her lap lay a stocking Judith was knitting for her brother, but she
had made few stitches, and yet had been an hour in the summer-house.
The garden of Mr. Menaida was hedged off from a neighbor's grounds by
a low wall of stone and clay and sand, in and out of which grew
roughly strong tamarisks now in their full pale pink blossom. The eyes
of Judith had been on these tamarisks, waving like plumes in the
sea-air, when she was startled from her reverie by the voice of Uncle
Zachie.
"Why, Miss Judith! What is the matter with you? Dull, eh? Ah--wait a
bit, when Oliver comes home we shall have mirth. He is full of
merriment. A bright boy and a good son; altogether a fellow to be
proud of, though I say it. He will return at the fall."
"I am glad to hear it, Mr. Menaida. You have not seen him for many
years."
"Not for ten."
"It will be a veritable feast to you. Does he remain long in England?"
"I cannot say. If his employers find work for him at home, then at
home he will tarry, but if they consider themselves best served by him
at Oporto, then to Portugal must he return."
"Will you honor me by taking a seat near me--under the trellis?" asked
Judith. "It will indeed be a pleasure to me to have a talk with you;
and I do need it very sore. My heart is so full that I feel I must
spill some of it before a friend."
"Then indeed I will hold out both hands to catch the sweetness."
"Nay--it is bitter, not sweet, bitter as gall, and briny as the
ocean."
"Not possible; a little salt gives savor."
She shook her head, took up the stocking, did a couple of stitches,
and put it down again. The sea-breeze that tossed the pink bunches of
tamarisk waved stray tresses of her red-gold hair, but somehow the
brilliancy, the burnish, seemed gone from it. Her eyes were sunken,
and there was a greenish tinge about the ivory white surrounding her
mouth.
"I cannot work, dear Mr. Menaida; I am so sorry that I should have
played badly that sonata last night. I knew it fretted you, but I
could not help myself, my mind is so selfishly directed that I cannot
attend to anything even of Beethoven's in music, nor to
stocking-knitting even for Jamie."
"And what are the bitter--briny thoughts?"
Judith did not answer at once, she looked down into her lap, and Mr.
Menaida, whose pipe was choked, went to the tamarisks and plucked a
little piece, stripped off the flower and proceeded to clear the tube
with it.
Presently, while Uncle Zachie's eyes were engaged on the pipe, Judith
looked up, and said hastily, "I am very young, Mr. Menaida."
"A fault in process of rectification every day," said he, blowing
through the stem of his pipe. "I think it is clear now."
"I mean--young to be married."
"To be married! Zounds!" He turned his eyes on her in surprise,
holding the tamarisk spill in one hand and the pipe in the other,
poised in the air.
"You have not understood that I got Jamie off the other day only by
taking full charge of him upon myself and relieving my aunt."
"But--good gracious, you are not going to marry your brother."
"My aunt would not transfer the guardianship to me unless I were
qualified to undertake and exercise it properly, according to her
ideas, and that could be only by my becoming engaged to be married to
a man of substance."
"Goodness help me! what a startlement! And who is the happy man to be?
Not Scantlebray, senior, I trust, whose wife is dying."
"No--Captain Coppinger."
"Cruel Coppinger!" Uncle Zachie put down his pipe so suddenly on the
bench by him that he broke it. "Cruel Coppinger! never!"
She said nothing to this, but rose and walked, with her head down,
along the bank, and put her hands among the waving pink bunches of
tamarisk bloom, sweeping the heads with her own delicate hand as she
passed. Then she came back to the boat arbor and reseated herself.
"Dear me! Bless my heart! I could not have credited it," gasped Mr.
Menaida, "and I had such different plans in my head--but there, no
more about them."
"I had to make my election whether to take him and qualify to become
Jamie's guardian, or refrain, and then he would have been snatched
away and imprisoned in that odious place again."
"But, my dear Miss Judith--" the old man was so agitated that he did
not know what he was about; he put the stick of tamarisk into his
mouth in place of his pipe, and took it out to speak, put down his
hand, picked up the bowl of his pipe, and tapped the end of the
tamarisk spill with that; "mercy save me! What a world we do live in.
And I had been building for you a castle--not in Spain, but in a
contiguous country--who'd have thought it? And Cruel Coppinger, too!
Upon my soul I don't want to say I am sorry for it, and I can't find
in my heart to say I'm glad."
"I do not expect that you will be glad--not if you have any love for
me."
The old man turned round, his eyes were watering and his face
twitching.
"I have, Heaven knows! I have--yes--I mean Miss Judith."
"Mr. Menaida," said the girl, "you have been so kind, so considerate,
that I should like to call you what every one else does--when speaking
of you to one another--not to your face--Uncle Zachie."
He put out his hand, it was shaking, and caught hers. He put the ends
of the fingers to his lips; but he kept his face averted, and the
water that had formed in his eyes ran down his cheeks. He did not
venture to speak. He had lost command over his voice.
"You see, uncle, I have no one of whom to ask counsel. I have only
aunt, and she--somehow--I feel that I cannot go to her, and get from
her the advice best suited to me. Now papa is dead I am entirely
alone, and I have to decide on matters most affecting my own life, and
that of Jamie. I do so crave for a friend who could give me an
opinion--but I have no one, if you refuse."
He pressed her hand.
"Not that now I can go back from my word. I have passed that to Aunt
Dionysia, and draw back I may not; but somehow, as I sit and think,
and think, and try to screw myself up to the resolution that must be
reached of giving up my hand and my whole life into the power of--of
that man, I cannot attain to it. I feel like one who is condemned to
cast himself down a precipice and shrinks from it, cannot make up his
mind to spring, but draws back after every run made to the edge. Tell
me--uncle--tell me truly, what do you think about Captain Coppinger?
What do you know about him? Is he a very wicked man?"
"You ask me what I think, and also what I know," said Mr. Menaida,
releasing her hand. "I know nothing, but I have my thoughts."
"Then tell me what you think."
"As I have said, I know nothing. I do not know whence he comes. Some
say he is a Dane, some that he is an Irishman. I cannot tell, I know
nothing, but I think his intonation is Irish, and I have heard that
there is a family of that name in Ireland. But this is all guesswork.
One thing I do know, he speaks French like a native. Then, as to his
character, I believe him to be a man of ungovernable temper, who, when
his blood is roused will stick at nothing. I think him a man of very
few scruples. But he has done liberal things--he is open-handed, that
all say. A hard liver, and with a rough tongue, and yet with some of
the polish of a gentleman; a man with the passions of a devil, but not
without in him some sparks of divine light. That is what I think him
to be. And if you ask me further, whether I think him a man calculated
to make you happy--I say decidedly that he is not."
Rarely before in his life had Mr. Menaida spoken with such decision.
"He has been kind to me," said Judith. "Very kind."
"Because he is in love with you."
"And gentle--"
"Have you ever done aught to anger him!"
"Yes. I threw him down and broke his arm and collar-bone."
"And won his heart by so doing."
"Uncle Zachie, he is a smuggler."
"Yes--there is no doubt about that."
"Do you suppose if I were to entreat him that he would abandon
smuggling? I have already had it in my heart to ask him this, but I
could not bring the request over my lips."
"I have no doubt if you asked him to throw up his smuggling that he
would promise to do so. Whether he would keep his promise is another
matter. Many a girl has made her lover swear to give up gambling, and
on that understanding has married him; but I reckon none have been
able to keep their husbands to the engagement. Gambling, smuggling,
and poaching, my dear, are in the blood. A man brings the love of
adventure, the love of running a risk, into the world with him. If I
had been made by my wife to swear when I married never to touch a
musical instrument, I might out of love for her have sworn, but I
could not have kept my oath. And you--if you vowed to keep your
fingers from needle and thread, and saw your gown in rags, or your
husband's linen frayed--would find an irresistible itch in the finger
ends to mend and hem, and you would do it, in spite of your vows. So
with a gambler, a poacher, and a smuggler, the instinct, the passion
is in them and is irresistible. Don't impose any promise on Captain
Cruel, it will not influence him."
"They tell me he is a wrecker."
"What do you mean by a wrecker! We are all wreckers, after a storm,
when a merchantman has gone to pieces on the rocks, and the shore is
strewn with prizes. I have taken what I could, and I see no harm in
it. When the sea throws treasures here and there, it is a sin not to
take them up and use them and be thankful."
"I do not mean that. I mean that he has been the means of luring ships
to their destruction."
"Of that I know nothing. Stories circulate whenever there is a wreck
not in foul weather or with a wind on shore. But who can say whether
they be true or false?"
"And about that man, Wyvill. Did he kill him?"
"There also I can say nothing, because I know nothing. All that can be
said about the matter is that the Preventive man Wyvill was found at
sea--or washed ashore without his head. A shark may have done it, and
sharks have been found off our coast. I cannot tell. There is not a
shadow of evidence that could justify an indictment. All that can be
stated that makes against Coppinger is that the one is a smuggler, the
other was a Preventive man, and that the latter was found dead and
with his head off, an unusual circumstance, but not sufficient to show
that he had been decapitated by any man, nor that the man who
decapitated him was Coppinger."
Then Mr. Menaida started up: "And--you sell yourself to this man for
Jamie?"
"Yes, uncle, to make a man of Jamie."
"On the chance, Judith, on the very doubtful chance of making a man
of Jamie, you rush on the certainty of making a ruin of yourself. That
man--that Coppinger to be trusted with you! A fair little vessel,
richly laden, with silken sail, and cedar sides, comes skimmering over
the sea, and--Heaven forgive me if I judge wrongly--but I think he is
a wrecker, enticing, constraining you on to the reefs where you will
break up, and all your treasures will--not fall to him--but sink; and
all that will remain of you will be a battered and broken hull, and a
draggled discolored sail. I cannot--I cannot endure the thought."
"Yet it must be endured, faced and endured by me," said Judith. "You
are a cruel comforter, Uncle Zachie. I called you to encourage me, and
you cast me down; to lighten my load, and you heap more on."
"I can do no other," gasped Mr. Menaida. Then he sprang back, with
open mouth, aghast. He saw Cruel Coppinger on the other side of the
hedge, he had put his hands to the tamarisk bushes, and thrust them
apart and was looking through.
"Goldfish!" called Captain Coppinger, "Goldfish, come!"
Judith knew the voice and looked in the direction whence it came, and
saw the large hands of Coppinger holding back the boughs of tamarisk,
his dark face in the gap. She rose at once and stepped toward him.
"You are ill," he said, fixing his sombre eyes on her.
"I am not ill in body. I have had much to harass my mind."
"Yes, that Wadebridge business."
"What has sprung out of it?"
"Shall I come to you, or will you to me!--through the tamarisks?"
"As you will, Captain Coppinger."
"Come, then--up on to the hedge and jump--I will catch you in my arms.
I have held you there ere this."
"Yes, you have taken me up, now must I throw----" She did not finish
the sentence; she meant, must she voluntarily throw herself into his
arms?
She caught hold of the bushes and raised herself to the top of the
hedge.
"By Heaven!" said he. "The tamarisk flowers have more color in them
than your face."
She stood on the summit of the bank, the tamarisks rising to her
knees, waving in the wind about her. Must she resign herself to that
man of whom she knew so little, whom she feared so greatly? There was
no help for it. She must. He held out his arms. She sprang, and he
caught her.
"I have you now," he said, with a laugh of triumph. "You have come to
me, and I will never give you up."