AN OUTBURST.
"I saw the new moon late yestreen,
Wi' the auld moon in her arm."
"Miss Marvin, does 'yestreen' mean 'last night'?"
"It does."
"Then I wish the fellow would say 'last night,'" grumbled Master Calvin.
"And how could the new moon have the old moon in her arm?"
Hester explained.
"But moons haven't arms." He pushed the book away pettishly.
"I hate this poetry! Why can't you teach me what I want?"
"That," said Hester, "is just what I am trying to discover.
Will you tell me what you want?"
To her amazement, he bent his head down upon his arms and broke into
sobbing. "I don't know what I want! Everyone hates me, and I--I hate it
all!"
Somehow, Hester--who had started by misliking the child, and only with the
gravest misgivings (yielding to pressure from his father) had consented to
teach him in her spare hours--was beginning to pity him. This new
feeling, to be sure, suffered from severe and constant checks; for he was
unamiable to the last degree, and seldom awoke a spark of liking but he
killed it again, and within five minutes, by doing or saying something
odious. He differed from other children, and differed unpleasantly.
He had taken the full tinge of his sanctimonious upbringing; he was
pharisaical, cruel at times, incurably twisted by his father's creed that
wrong becomes right when committed by a pious person from pious motives.
(His mother had once destroyed a cat because she found herself growing
fond of it and believed that a Christian's soul must be weaned of all
earthly affections.) He appealed to Hester's pity because, with all this,
he was unhappy.
She had been teaching him languidly and inattentively to-day, being
preoccupied with a letter in her pocket; and to this letter, having set
him to learn his verses from Sir Patrick Spens, she let her thoughts
wander. It ran:--
"My dear Miss Marvin,--After much hesitation I have decided to
commit to writing a proposal which has been ripening in my mind
during our three months' acquaintance. My age and my
convictions alike disincline me to set too much store on the
emotion men call 'love,' which in my experience is illusory as
the attractions provoking it are superficial. But as a solitary
man I have long sighed for the blessings of Christian
companionship, or a union founded on mutual esteem and fruitful
in well-doing. While from the first not insensible to your
charms of person, I have allowed my inclination to grow because
I detected in you the superior graces of the mind and a strength
of character which could not be other than sustaining to the man
fortunate enough to possess you for a helpmeet. In short, my
dear Miss Marvin, you would gratify me in the highest degree by
consenting to be Mrs. R. I am, as you are probably aware,
well-to-do. The circumstances of my being a widower will not,
I hope, weigh seriously against this proposal in the mind of one
who, while retaining the personal attractions above mentioned,
may be reasonably supposed to have set aside the romantic
illusions of girlhood. Awaiting your reply, which I trust may
be favourable, I remain, yours very truly,"
"S. Rosewarne."
"P.S.--Your exceptional gifts in the handling of children assure
me that my son Calvin would receive from you a care no less than
motherly. He would meet it, I feel equally sure, with a
responsive affection."
The tone of this letter made Hester tingle as if some of its phrases had
been thongs to scourge her.
Yet it must be answered.
That this odious man should have dared--and yet for weeks she had seen it
coming. Incredible as she found it that a man from whom every nerve of
her body recoiled with loathing should complacently ignore the signs,
should complacently persevere in assuming himself to be agreeable and in
pressing that assumption, she had to admit that the offer did not take her
wholly by surprise. What bruised her was the insufferable obtuseness of
the wording. How was it possible for a human being to sit down in good
faith and pen such sentences without guessing that they hurt or insulted?
Nevertheless she blessed the impulse which had prompted him to write; for
in writing he could be answered. All day she had gone in dread of meeting
him face to face.
Once or twice, while she pondered her answer, she had glanced up at the
child, as if _he_ could explain his father. What fatal unhappy gift had
they both, by which in all that they said or did they earned aversion?
When the child broke down, she arose with a pang of self-reproach, crossed
to his chair, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Listen to me, Calvin," she said. "You have told me one thing you want:
you want people to like instead of disliking you. Well, the quickest way
is to find out what they want, and do it, forgetting yourself; and then,
perhaps quite suddenly, you will wake up and discover not only that people
like you already, but that you yourself are full of a happiness you can't
explain."
The gust of his sobbing grew calmer by degrees. He lifted his head a
little, but not to look her in the face.
"Is that puzzling to you?" she asked. "Well, then, just give it a small
trial in practice, and see how it works. I want you, for instance, to
learn those verses. You don't like them; but by learning them you will
please me, and you want to please me. Try now!"
He pulled the book towards him and bent over it, his head between his
hands. After three or four minutes he stood up, red-eyed and a little
defiant--
"'I saw the new moon late yestreen,
Wi' the auld moon in her arm;
And if we gang to sea, master,
I fear we'll come to harm.'"
"They hadna sail'd a league, a league,
A league but barely ane--"
Hester listened with eyes withdrawn, in delicacy avoiding to meet his
tear-reddened ones; and just then from the upper floor a scream rang
through the house--a child's scream.
Master Calvin heard it, and broke off with a grin.
"That will be Myra," he announced. "She's catching it!"
Had she been less distraught, Hester might have marked and sighed over his
sudden relapse into odiousness. But she had risen with a white face; for
scream folllowed scream overhead, and the sound tortured her.
"You don't tell me,"--she began, putting up both hands to her ears.
"No, no--there has been some accident! The poor child is calling for
help!"
She ran out of the parlour, up the two flights of stairs and along a dark
winding corridor, still guided by the screams. At the end of the corridor
she found Susannah, pale, wringing her hands, outside a door which,
however, she made no attempt to enter.
"Oh, miss, he's killing her!"
"Is the door locked?" panted Hester, at the same time flinging her weight
against it as she turned the handle. It flew open, and she confronted--
not Myra, but Mr. Sam.
He stood between her and the window with an arm uplifted and in his hand a
leathern strap; and while she recoiled for an instant, the strap descended
across the naked back and shoulders of little Clem, who drooped under it
with bowed knees, helpless, his arms extended, his wrists bound together
and lashed to the bed-post. The child made no sound. The piercing
screams came not from him, but from an inner room--Myra's bedroom--and
from behind a closed door.
"You shall not!" Hester flung herself forward, shielding the child from
another blow. "Oh, what wickedness are you doing! What horrible
wickedness!"
Mr. Sam had raised his arm again. The man indeed seemed to be
transported with passion, with sheer lust of cruelty. It is doubtful if
he had heard her enter. His dark face twitched distortedly in the fading
light.
"I'll teach him--I'll teach him!" he panted.
"You shall not!" Hester, covering the child's limp body, could not see his
face, but her eyes fell on his little shirt, ripped from neckband to flap,
and lying on the floor as it had been torn from his body and tossed aside.
She called to Susannah, still lingering doubtfully outside upon the mat,
and pointed to the door behind Mr. Sam. Susannah plucked up courage,
stepped across and turned the key. An instant later, like a small wild
beast uncaged, Myra came springing and crouched beside her brother, facing
his tormentor with blazing eyes.
Hester, catching sight of the housekeeper's scissors which Susannah wore
at her waist, motioned to her to cut the cords binding Clem's wrists.
Mr. Sam made no effort to oppose her, but stood panting, with one hand
resting on the dressing-table. Susannah managed indeed to detach the
scissors, but held them out falteringly, as though in sheer terror
declining all responsibility.
"Give them to me, then."
But as Susannah held them out Myra leapt up and, snatching them, dashed
upon her uncle. His hand still rested palm downwards on the
dressing-table, and she struck at it. Undoubtedly the child would have
stabbed it through--for, strange to say, he made no effort to fend her off
or to avoid the stroke--had not Hester run in time to push her smartly by
the shoulder in the very act of striking. As it was the scissor-point
drove into the table, missing him by a bare two inches. Then and then
only he lifted his hand and stared at it stupidly. He seemed about to
speak, but turned with a click of the throat--a queer dry sound, as though
a sudden thirst parched him--and walked heavily from the room.
Hester gazed after him and back at the scissors on the dressing-table.
She was reaching forward to pick them up when a cry from Susannah bade her
hurry. Clem had fainted, his legs doubled beneath him, his head falling
horribly back from his upstretched arms, which still, like ropes, held him
fast to the bed-post.
Twenty minutes later Hester descended the stairs. Clem was in bed with
his sister's arms about him; and Myra's last look at parting had been one
of dumb gratitude, pitifully asking pardon for old jealousies, old
misunderstandings. At any other time Hester would have rejoiced over the
winning of a friend.
But the sight of the weals on Clem's back had for the moment killed all
feeling in her but disgust and horror. So deep was her disgust that the
sight of Master Calvin, whom she surprised in the act of listening outside
the door, scarcely ruffled it afresh. So complete was her horror that it
left no room for astonishment when, reaching the foot of the stairs, she
found Mr. Sam himself lingering in the hall, apparently awaiting her.
She walked past him with set face. All the smooth, pietistic phrases of
his letter rang a chime in her brain, to be retorted upon him as soon as
he dared to speak. But he did not speak. He looked up, as if awaiting
her; took half a step forward; then drew aside and let her pass. She went
by with set face, not sparing a look for him. In the open air she drew a
long breath.
Above all things she desired to consult with Peter Benny. In this there
was nothing surprising, for everyone in trouble went to Peter Benny.
He himself--honest man--had to admit that the number of confidences which
came his way were, no doubt, extraordinary. He explained it on the simple
ground that he wrote letters for seamen and made it a rule never to
divulge their secrets. "Not that anyone would dream of it," he added;
"but my secrecy, happening to be professional, gets its credit
advertised."
It appeared that these professional duties were heavier than usual
to-night. At any rate, when Hester reached the little cottage by the
quayside, it was to find that he had made a hasty tea and departed for the
office. In her urgency, after merely telling Mrs. Benny that she would be
back in a few minutes, Hester ran down the court to the office, tapped
hurriedly at the door, and pushed it open.
Within, with his back towards her, erect and naked to the waist under the
rays of an oil lamp swinging from the beam, stood a young man. The light
falling on his firm shoulders and the muscles along his spine showed the
gleaming flesh tattooed with interwoven patterns, delicate as lacework;
and in the midst, reaching from shoulder-blade to shoulder-blade, a bright
blue tree with a cross above, and beneath it, the figures of Adam and Eve.
As she drew back, Mr. Benny, on the far side of the office, raised his
eyes from a table over which he bent to dip a needle in a saucer of Indian
ink; and at the same moment the young man under the lamp, suddenly aware
of a visitor, faced about with a shy laugh. It was Tom Trevarthen.
Hester, with a short cry of dismay, backed into the darkness, shutting the
door as she retreated. When Mr. Benny returned to supper he forbore from
alluding to the incident until Hester--her trouble still unconfided--shook
hands with him for the night.
"I've heard," he said, "folks laugh at sailors for tattooing themselves.
But 'tis done in case they're drowned, that their bodies may be known;
and, if you look at that, 'tis a sacrament surely."
That night Hester awoke from a terrifying dream; and still, as she dreamed
again, she saw a lash descending on a child's naked back, leaving at each
stroke the mark of a cross interwoven with a strange and delicate pattern;
and at each stroke heard a girl's voice which screamed, "It is a
sacrament!"