IS THERE ANY SORROW LIKE LOVING?
"For love the sense of right and wrong confounds;
Strong love and proud ambition have no bounds."
--DRYDEN.
"The fate of love is such
That still it sees too little or too much."
--DRYDEN.
"Fate ne'er strikes deep but when unkindness joins.
But there's a fate in kindness,
Still to be least returned where most 'tis given."
--DRYDEN.
Lovers see miracles, or think they ought to. Roland expected all his
own world to turn to his love. The self-denying, forbearing, loyal
affection Elizabeth had shown him all her life was now of no value,
since she did not sympathize with his love for Denas. John and Joan
Penelles were the objects of his dislike and scorn because they could
not see their daughter's future as he saw it. He thought it only right
that Priscilla Mohun should risk her business and her reputation for
the furtherance of his romantic love affair. He had easily persuaded
himself that it was utterly contemptible in her to expect any
financial reward for a service of love.
Denas had more force of character. She was offended at Elizabeth
because Elizabeth had wounded her self-respect and put her into a most
humiliating position. She was too truthful not to admit that Elizabeth
had from the first hour of their acquaintance openly opposed anything
like love-making between Roland and herself. She understood and
acknowledged the rights of her parents. In trampling on them she knew
that she was sinning with her eyes open. And if Roland spent the day
in arranging his plans for the future, she spent it in facing squarely
the thing she had determined to do.
For she was aware that Roland was coming that night to urge her to go
to London and become a public singer. She did not know how much money
would be required, but she knew that whatever the sum was it must come
from Roland. Then, of course, she must marry Roland at once. Under no
other relationship could she take money from him. Yet on carefully
questioning her memory she was sure that the subject of marriage had
been avoided, or, at any rate, not spoken of in any discussion of her
future.
"But," she said, with a swift motion of determination, "that is the
first subject, and the one on which all others depend."
At eight o'clock Roland was with her. He came with his most
irresistible manner, came prepared to carry his own desires in an
enthusiasm of that supreme selfishness which he chose to designate as
"love for Denas."
"You have only to learn how to manage that wonderful voice of yours,
Denas," he said, "and a steady flow of money will be the result. You
must have read of the enormous sums singers receive, but we will be
modest at first and suppose you only make a few hundreds a year. In
the long run that will be nothing; and you will be a very rich
woman."
"You have often said such things to me, Roland. But perhaps you do not
judge me severely enough. I must see a great teacher, and he will tell
me the truth."
"To be sure. And you must have lessons also."
"And for these things there must be money."
"Certainly. I have upward of five hundred pounds and you have one
hundred at least."
"I have nothing, Roland."
"The money you told me of in St. Merryn's Bank."
"I cannot touch that."
"Why?"
"Because I will not. Father has been saving it ever since I was born.
If he is sick it is all he has to live upon. It is bad enough to
desert my parents; I will not rob them also."
"You must not look at things in such extreme ways. You are going to
spend money in order to make a fortune."
"I will not spend father's money--the fortune may never come."
"Then there is my money. You are welcome to every penny of it. All I
have is yours. I only live for you."
"To say such things, Roland, is the way to marry me--if you mean to
marry me--is it not? Among the fishermen it is so, only they would say
first of all, 'I do wish to be your husband.'"
"I am not a fisherman, Denas. And it would really be very dishonourable
to bind your fortune irrevocably to mine. In a couple of years you
would be apt to say: 'Roland played me a mean trick, for he made me
his wife only that he might have all the money I earn.' Don't you
see what a dreadful position I should be in? I should be ashamed to
show my face. Really, dearest, I must look after my honour. My
money--that is nothing."
"Roland, if honour and money cannot go together, there is something
wrong. If I went to London alone and you were also in London and
paying for my lessons, do you know what everyone would say in St.
Penfer? Do you know what they would call me?"
"Why need you care for a lot of old gossips--you, with such a grand
future before you?"
"I do care. I care for myself. I care a thousand times more for father
and mother. A word against my good name would kill them. They would
never hold up their heads any more. And then, however bad a name the
public gave me, I should give myself a worse one; I should indeed!
Night and day my soul would never cease saying to me: 'Denas Penelles,
you are a murderess! Hanging is too little for you. Get out of this
life and go to your own place'--and you know where that would be."
"You silly, bigoted little Methodist! People do not die of grief in
these days, they have too much to do. You would soon be able to send
them a great deal of money, and that would put all right."
"For shame, Roland! Little you know of St. Penfer fishermen, nothing
at all you know of John and Joan Penelles, if you think a city full of
gold would atone to them for my dishonour. What is the use of going
around about our words when there are straight ones enough to say? I
will go to London as your wife, or I will not go at all."
There was a momentary expression on Roland's face which might have
terrified Denas if she had seen it, but her gaze was far outward; she
was looking down on the waves and the boats of St. Penfer and on one
little cottage on its shingle. And Roland's hasty glance into her
resolute face convinced him that all parleying was useless. He was
angry and could not quite control himself. His voice showed decided
pique as he answered:
"Very well, Denas. Take care of your own honour, by all means; mine is
of no value, of course."
"If you think marrying me makes it of no value, take care of your own
honour, Roland. I will not be your wife; no, indeed. And as for
London, I will not go near it. And as for my voice, it may be worth
money, but it is not worth my honour, and my good name, and my
father's and mother's life. Why should I sing for strangers? I will
sing for my father and the fishers on the sea; and I will sing in the
chapel--and there is an end of the matter."
She rose with such an air of decision and wounded feeling that Roland
involuntarily thought of her attitude when Elizabeth offended her.
From the position taken at that hour she had never wavered; she was
still as angry at Mrs. Burrell as she had been when she left the Court
in the first outburst of her indignation. And she was so handsome in
her affected indifference and her real indignation that Roland was
ready to sacrifice everything rather than lose her. He let all other
considerations slip away from him; he vowed that his chief longing,
his most passionate desire, was to marry her--to make her his and his
only; and that nothing but a chivalric sense of the wrong he might be
doing her future had made him hesitate. And then he eloquently praised
himself for such a nicety of honour, and tried to make her understand
how really noble he had been in his self-denial, and how hard it was
for him to be accused of the very thing he was trying to avoid. And he
looked so injured, with his beautiful eyes full of tears, that Denas
was privately ashamed of herself, and fearful that she had in defence
of her modesty gone beyond proper boundaries.
Then the subject of their marriage was frankly discussed. Roland
was now honest and earnest enough, and yet Denas felt that the
charm of the great question and answer had been lost in considering
it. Spontaneity--that subtle element of all that is lovely and
enchanting--had flown away at the first suspicion of constraint. Some
sweet illusion that had always hung like a halo over this grand
decision evaded her consciousness; the glorious ideal had become a
reality and lost all its enchantments in the change.
After a long discussion, it was finally arranged that Roland should
meet Denas at a small way-station about four miles distant on the
following Monday evening. From there they could take a train to
Plymouth, and at Plymouth there was a Wesleyan minister whom Denas had
seen and who she felt sure would marry them. From Plymouth to Exeter,
Salisbury, and London was a straight road, and yet one which had many
asides and not too easy to follow; though as to any fear of
interruptions, they were hardly worth considering. Denas would leave
her home as usual on Monday morning, and her parents would have no
expectation of seeing her until the following Friday night. By that
time she would be settled in London--she would have been Roland's wife
for nearly four days.
These arrangements were made on Friday night, and on the following
morning Denas went home very early. As she took the cliff-road she
felt that the spirit of change had entered into her heart and her
imagination. The familiar path had become monotonously dreary; she had
a kind of pity for the people who had not her hope of a speedy escape
from it. The desolate winter beach, the lonely boats, the closed
cottages--how inexorably common they looked! She felt that there must
be something in the world better for her than such mean poverty.
Roland's words had indeed induced this utter weariness and contempt
for the conditions of her life, but the conditions themselves were
thus made to give the most eloquent sanction to his advice and
entreaties.
And when a girl has set her face toward a wrong road, nothing is
sadder in life than the general certainty there is that every small
event will urge her forward on it. Usually the home-coming of Denas
was watched for and seen afar off, and some special dainty was
simmering on the hob for her refreshment. There was all the pleasant
flurry that belongs to love's warm welcome. But she had delayed her
return in order to spend the evening with Roland, and the environments
of the morning had not the same air of easy happiness that attaches
itself to the evening hours.
Joan was elbow-deep in her week's cleaning and baking. John had the
uncomfortable feeling of a man who knows himself in the way. He had
only loitered around in order to see Denas and be sure that all was
well with his girl. Then he was a trifle disappointed that she had not
brought him his weekly paper. He went silently off to the boats, and
Denas was annoyed and reproved by his patient look of disappointment.
Women who are cleaning and baking are often, what is called by people
less troublesomely employed, cross. Denas was sure her mother was
cross and a little unreasonable. She had not time to listen to the
village gossip; "it would keep till evening," she said.
Then she bid Denas hurry up and get her father's heavy guernsey mended
and his bottle of water filled, ready for the boat. "They be going out
on the noon ebb," she said, "and back with the midnight tide, and so
take thought for the Sabbath; for your father, he do have to preach
over to Pendree to-morrow, and the sermon more on his mind than the
fishing--God help us!"
"Will father expect me to walk with him to Pendree to-morrow, mother?
It is too far; I cannot walk so far."
"Will he expect you? Not as I know by, Denas--if you don't want to go.
There be girls as would busy all to do so. But there! it is easy seen
you are neither fatherish or motherish these days."
"I wish father was rich enough to stay at home and never go to sea
again."
"That be a bit of nonsense! Your father has had a taking to the sea
all his life; and he never could abide to be boxed up on land. Aw, my
dear, John Penelles is a busker of a fisherman! The storm never yet
did blow that down-daunted him! Tris says it is a great thing to see
your father stand smiling by the wheel when the lightning be flying
all across the elements and the big waves be threatening moment by
moment to make a mouthful of the boat. That be the Penelles' way, my
dear; they come from a good old _haveage_;[3] but there, then, it be
whist poor speed we make when our tongues tire our hands."
"'Tis like a storm as it can be, mother."
"Aw, then, a young girl should say brave words or no words at all.
'Tis not your work to forespeak bad weather, and I wish you wouldn't
do it, Denas; I do for sure."
In an hour John came back and had a mouthful of meat and bread, but he
was hurried and anxious, and said he had not come yet to his meat-list
and would be off about his business. Then Joan asked him concerning
the weather, and he answered:
"The gulls do fly high, and that do mean a breeze; but there be no
danger until they fly inland. The boats will be back before midnight,
my dear."
"If the wind do let them, John. Denas says it be on its contrary old
ways again."
"My old dear, we be safest when the storm-winds blow; for then God do
be keeping the lookout for us. Joan, my wife, 'tis not your business
to be looking after the wind, nor mine either; for just as long as
John Penelles trusts his boat to the Great Pilot, it is sure and
certain to come into harbour right side up. Now, my dear, give me a
big jug of milk, with a little boiling water in it to take off the
edge of the cold, and then I'll away for the gray fish--if so be God
fills the net on either side the boat for us."
"Hark, father! The wind has turned to a north-easter--a bad wind on
this coast."
"Not it, Denas. What was it you read me in that story paper? Some
verses by a great and good man who have been in a stiff north-easter,
or else he never could have got the true grip of it:
"'Welcome, wild north-easter!
Come, and strong within us
Stir the seaman's blood,
Bracing brain and sinew;
Come, thou wind of God!'"
"That is not right, and that is not the whole of it, father."
"Aw, 'tis enough, my dear; all that the soul wants, the memory can
hold to--'tis enough. Good-bye, and God's keeping."
He drank his warm milk, buttoned close his pilot coat, and went off
toward the boats. Denas had no fear for him, but Joan had not learned
trust from her husband's trust; the iron ring of the wind, the black
sea, the wild sky with its tattered remnants of clouds, made her full
of apprehension. She hurried her work and was silent over it; while
Denas sat in the little window sewing, and occasionally letting her
eyes wander outward over the lonely beach and the homely "cob"
cottages of the fishers.
It was a solitary, lonesome, dreary-looking spot on that bleak winter
day; and life inside those tiny houses was restricted and full of
limitations. Denas thought of them all, but she weighed and measured
the life without taking into account the love that sat on each
hearthstone--the love that turned the simple houses into homes and the
plain, hard-working men into husbands and sons and brothers and lovers
and saw that they were good men and brave heroes in spite of their
poverty. Love would have altered her estimate, but she did not ask
love to count with her. She only thought: "If I did not know of a
better life, of a life full of pleasure and change, I might go and
live with Tris and dree my days out with him; but I am now too wise to
be so easily satisfied. I want a house finer than Elizabeth's; I want
grand dresses, and plenty of servants, and a carriage; and Roland
says all these things are in my voice. Besides, I am far too pretty to
be a fisherman's wife and mend guernseys, and make nets, and bake
fish-pies every day in the year."
Far too pretty! After all, this was the deepest thought in her foolish
heart. At first, Roland's pictures of her in picturesque costume,
singing to enthusiastic crowds, had rather terrified her; but she had
let the idea enter her mind, it had become familiar, then alluring,
and finally a delightful dream. She occupied many hours in devising
costumes, in imagining herself in their colours and forms, and in
considering how the homage she would receive would be most nobly borne
as it affected Roland. Of course she would throw all at his feet--all
the admiration, all the love, all the gold that came to her.
She looked at the grave-faced, preoccupied mother and wished she could
talk with her about her hopes. Roland had expressed himself as greatly
hurt by this inability. "Most mothers, Denas," he said, "would be only
too happy to anticipate such a prospect for their daughter, and you
ought to have had a mother's sympathy and help at this great epoch of
your life. Poor girl! it is too bad that you are obliged to bear the
whole weight of such a movement yourself!"
So Denas looked at her mother, and felt aggrieved by the strict creed
which ruled her life. Methodists were so very narrow. She remembered
her father's anger at a mere proposal of Miss Tresham to take Denas
to a theatre with her. She knew that he believed a theatre to be the
open door to hell; and that the mere idea of men and women, either
with souls saved or souls to be saved, dancing, filled him with shame
and anger. Yet she was going to sing in a theatre if possible; and
Roland had said a great deal about the fisher dances of various
countries and how effective they would be with the songs.
At first she had refused to tolerate the idea; she could not imagine
herself dancing to amuse a crowd of strangers--dancing for money. She
thought of Herodias dancing the Baptist's head off, and she said
solemnly to Roland, and with the utmost sincerity, that she dared not
dance. It was the broad road to perdition. Roland had not cared to
argue with such a prejudice. He knew well that the dancing would
follow the public singing, as naturally as the singing followed the
professional orchestra. But he said then, as he said frequently
afterward: "It is such a pity, Denas, you have not a mother you can
advise with and who could help and encourage you. It just locks a girl
up in a box to be born a Methodist!"
This attitude of Roland's was a very cruel one. It taught Denas to
feel that her secrecy was not her fault. She continually told herself
that she would have been glad to talk over her future plans with her
parents if they would only have listened to her; that it was not her
fault if they were unreasonable and bigoted--not her fault if her mind
had grown beyond her surroundings; that her father and mother ought
to consider that her education and her companionship with Elizabeth
Tresham had led naturally to the craving for a wider life; and that if
they give the first they ought in common justice to be ready to
consider the consequences with her.
"But they will not," she thought angrily. "They want me to settle down
and be content with Tris Penrose. I dare not tell them that Roland
loves me. Roland dare not tell them either. I cannot say a word to
them about my voice and the money it may make. Roland says any
reasonable father and mother would be quite excited at the prospect
and glad to go to London with me. But will my father and mother do so?
Oh, no! In order to do myself justice I am obliged to run away. It is
too bad! Any sensible person would feel sorry for me."
With such specious reasoning she satisfied her conscience, and the
afternoon wore away in gathering gloom and fierce scuds of rain. It
was nearly dark at four o'clock, and she rose and brought a small
round table to the hearth and began to put on it the tea-cups and the
bread and butter. As she did so Joan entered the room. Her arms were
full of clean clothing, but glancing at the table she threw them above
her head, and regardless of the scattered garments cried out:
"Denas! Look to the loaf! Some poor ship be in distress! Pray God it
be not your father's."
Then Denas with trembling hands lifted the loaf, which she had
inadvertently laid down wrong side upward, and placed it, with a "God
save the ship and all in her," in the proper position. But Joan was
thoroughly unnerved by the ominous incident, and she sat down with her
apron over her head, rocking herself slowly to her inaudible prayer;
while Denas, with a resentful feeling she did not try to understand,
gathered up the pieces of linen and flannel her mother had apparently
forgotten.
Into this scene stepped a young man in the Burrell Court livery. He
gave Denas a letter, but refused the offer of a cup of tea, because
"the storm was hurrying landward, and he would be busy all to catch
the cliff-top before it caught him."
Joan took no notice of the interruption, and Denas felt her trouble
over such a slight affair as a turned loaf to be almost a personal
offence. In a short time she said: "Mother, your tea is waiting; and I
have a letter from Mrs. Burrell, if you care anything about it."
"Aw, my girl, I care little for Mrs. Burrell's letters to-night. She
be well and happy, no doubt; and my old dear is in the wind's teeth
and pulling hard against a frosty death."
"Father knows the sky and the sea, and I think it is cruel hard of him
to take such risks."
"And where will the fishers be who do take no risks? Fish be plenty
just before a storm, and the London market-boat waiting for the take;
and why wouldn't the men do their duty, danger or no danger?"
"I would rather die than be a fisher's wife."
"Aw, my girl, the heart for one isn't in you."
"I never saw you so nervous before, mother."
"Nervous! Nervous! No, my dear, it be downright fear. I never knew
what fear was before. I've gone down-daunted--that be the trouble,
Denas. I've had such dreams lately--such creepy-like, ghastly old
dreams of wandering in wayless ways covered with water; of seeing the
hearth-place full of cold ashes and the lights put out; and of
carrying the 'Grief Child' in my breast, a puny, wailing bit of a baby
that I could not be rid of, nor yet get away from--sights and sounds
after me night and day that do give me a turn to think of; and what
they do mean I haven't mind-light for to see. God help us! But I do
fear they be signs of trouble. And who goes into the way of trouble
but your father? May God save him from it!"
"Trouble is no new thing, mother."
"That be the truth. Trouble be old as the floods of Dava."
"And it does seem to me religious people, who are always talking about
trusting God, are a poor, unhappy kind. If you do believe, mother,
that God is the good Father you say He is--if you do think He has led
millions to His own heavenly city--I wonder at you always fearing that
He is going to forget you and let you lose your way and get into all
kinds of danger and sorrow."
"There, then! You be right for once, my dear. Your father, he do serve
the Lord with gladness, but a wife's heart is nothing but a nest of
fear. And it be true that I do not think so much of serving the Lord
as of having the Lord serve me; and when it is me and always me, and
your heart be top-full of your dismal old self, how can you serve God
with gladness? You be right to give me a set-down, Denas. Come, now,
what is Mrs. Burrell's letter about? I be pleased and ready to hear it
now, my dear."
"This is what she says, mother:
"'DEAR DENAS:--I am troubled about Roland and you. I want very
much to talk things over with you. If I offended you when you were
at the Court, I am very sorry for it. Come and spend a day next
week with me. I will send the carriage to Miss Mohun's.
"'Your friend,
"'ELIZABETH BURRELL.'"
"Why is she troubled about you and that young man? Is he not in London
now?"
"He is here, and there, and everywhere. Would you go to the Court
again, mother? I told you how Elizabeth behaved to me."
"Aw, then she had the bride-fever, my dear. She will be come to her
senses by this time. Yes, yes, if you aren't very sure how to act,
take the kind way rather than the ill way; you will be mostly right,
my dear."
Of course Denas had no idea of taking either way, but the invitation
furnished her with a reason for wearing her best dress on Monday; and
she had been much exercised to find out a cause for this unusual
finery. She felt quite excited over this fortunate incident, and she
could not avoid a smile when she reflected that Elizabeth had so
opportunely furnished her with the very thing she wanted.
Then for an hour or two Joan quite controlled herself. She asked after
the news of the upper town, and listened with interest to her
daughter's description of the dresses she was helping to fashion. From
this topic they glided naturally to Christmas and its coming
festivities, and Joan talked a good deal of the new silver watch they
had decided to give John as a Christmas gift, and so for some time she
was as full of plans and happy hopes as a little child could be.
She did not notice that after a while Denas grew weary and constrained,
that speech seemed a trouble to her, that she lost herself frequently
in reverie, and was as nearly nervous as she had accused her mother of
being. But the conversation finally flagged so much that Joan began
to worry about the weather once more. The wind was now frightful, the
icy rain rattled against the windows, and at the open door Joan could
hear billow on billow, crash on crash, shrieking blast on shrieking
blast. She was unable to preserve her cheerfulness. Like all strong
hearts in anxiety, she became silent. The platitudes of Denas,
dropped without interest, annoyed her; she only moved her head in
reply.
Midnight came, and no boats. There was a pitifully frequent opening of
cottage doors, and the sudden flashes of fire and candle light that
followed revealed always some white, fearful face thrust out into the
black night, in the hope of hearing the shouts of the home-coming men.
Joan could not keep away from the door; and the yawning of Denas, her
shifting movements, her uncontrolled sleepiness, irritated Joan. In
great anxiety, companionship not perfectly sympathetic is irritating;
mere mortals quiver under its infliction. For Denas could not perceive
any special reason for unusual fear; she longed to go to bed and sleep,
as she had done many a time before under the same circumstances. She
laid the Bible on the table before Joan and said: "Won't you read a
psalm and lie down a bit, mother?"
"No. Read for yourself, and to bed then if you want to go."
Denas opened the book. Her father's mark was in the psalms, and she
began to read to herself.
Joan's face was beneath her blue apron. David's words did not
interpret her at this hour; only her own lips could speak for her own
sorrow and fear. There was a deep stillness in the house. Outside the
tempest raged wildly. It seemed to Joan as if hours passed in that
interval of heart-trembling; she was almost shocked when the old clock
gave its long whirring warning and then struck only _one_. Her first
look was to the fire. It wanted replenishing. Her next was at Denas.
The girl was fast asleep. Her hands were across the open Bible, her
face was dropped upon them. Joan touched her and said not unkindly:
"A little bit of Bible-reading do send people to sleep quick, don't
it, Denas?"
"I was so tired, mother."
"Aw, my dear, you be no worse than Christian in the 'Pilgrim's
Progress.' He did go to sleep, too, when he was reading his roll.
Come, my girl, it is your time for bed. Sitting up won't help you to
bear trouble."
"Mother, won't it be time enough to bear trouble when it is really
here to be borne?"
"It do seem as if it would. Love be a fearful looker-forward. Go to
bed, my girl; maybe you will sleep sorrow away."
So Denas went to bed and did not awake until the grey light of the
stormy morning was over everything. She could hear the murmur of
voices in the living-room, and she dressed quickly and went there.
John Penelles sat by the fire drinking hot tea. His hair had yet bits
of ice in it, his face still had the awful shadow that is cast by the
passing-by of death. Denas put her arms around his neck and kissed
him; she kissed him until she began to sob, and he drew her upon his
knee, and held her to his breast, and said in a whisper to her:
"Ten men drowned, my dear, and three frozen to death; but through
God's mercy father slipped away from an ugly fate."
"Oh, father, how could you bear it?"
"God help us, Denas, we must bear what is sent."
"What a night it has been! How did you live through it?"
"It's dogged as does it and lives through it. It's dogged as does
anything, my dear, all over the world. I stuck to the boat and the
boat stuck to me. God Almighty Himself can't help a coward."
The storm continued all day, but began to slacken in intensity at
sunset. There was of course no service at Pendree. John, even if he
had not been so worn out, could not have reached the place in such a
storm, either by land or sea. But the neighbours, without seeming
premeditation, gathered in John's cottage at night, and he opened his
Bible and read aloud:
"Terrors take hold on him, as waters; a tempest stealeth him away in
the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and as a
storm hurleth him out of his place."
And it was to these words, with their awful application to the wicked,
that Denas listened the last night she intended to spend under her
father's roof. John's discourses were nearly always like his nature,
tender and persuasive; and this terrible sermon wove itself in and out
of her wandering thoughts like a black scroll in a gay vesture. It
pained and troubled her, though she did not consider why it should do
so. After the meeting was over John was very weary; but he would not
go to bed until he had eaten supper. He "wanted his little maid to sit
near him for half-an-hour," he said. And he held her hand in his own
hand, and gave her such looks of perfect love and blessed her so
solemnly and sweetly when at length he left her that she began to sob
again and to stand on tiptoe that she might throw her arms around his
neck and touch his lips with hers once more.
Her kisses were wet with her tears, and they made John's heart soft
and gentle as a baby's. "She be the fondest little maid," he said to
his wife. "She be the fondest little maid! I could take a whole year
to praise her, Joan, and then I could not say enough."
In reality, the last two days, with their excess of vital emotions,
had worn Denas out. Never before had the life into which she was born
looked so unlovely to her. She preferred the twitter and twaddle of
Priscilla's workroom to the intense realities of an existence always
verging on eternity. She dared to contrast those large, heroic
fishers, with their immovable principles and their constant fight with
all the elemental forces for their daily bread, with Roland Tresham;
and to decide that Roland's delicate beauty, pretty, persuasive
manners, and fashionable clothing were vastly superior attributes. So
she was glad when the morning came, for she was weary of enduring what
need no longer be endured.
It still rained, but she put on her best clothing, and Joan was not
pleased at her for doing so. She thought she might come home some
night when the rain was over and change her dress for the visit to
Burrell Court. This difference of opinion made their last meal
together a silent one; for John was in a deep sleep and Joan would not
have him disturbed. Denas just opened the door and stood a moment
looking at the large, placid face on the white pillow. As she turned
away, it seemed as if she cut a piece out of her heart; she had a
momentary spasm of real physical pain.
Joan had not yet recovered from her night of terror. Her face was
grey, her eyes heavy, her heart still beating and aching with some
unintelligible sense of wrong or grief. And she looked at her child
with such a dumb, sorrowful inquiry that Denas sat down near her and
put her head on her mother's breast and asked: "What is it, mother?
Have I done anything to grieve you?"
"Not as I know by, dear. I wish you hadn't worn your best dress--dresses
do cost money, don't they now?"
"Yes, they do, mother. There then! Shall I take it off? I will, to
please you, mother."
"No, no! The will be as good as the deed from my little girl. Maybe
you are right, too. Dress do go a long way to pleasing."
"Then good-bye. Kiss me, mother! Kiss me twice! Kiss me again, for
father!"
So Joan kissed her child. She smoothed her hair, and straightened her
collar, and put in a missed button, and so held her close for a few
moments, and kissed her again; and when Denas had reached the foot of
the cliff, she was still watching her with the look on her face--the
look of a mother who feels as if she still held her child in her
arms.
O love! love! love! Is there any sorrow in life like loving?
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Family, race.