SORROW BRINGS US ALL HOME.
"Look in my face. My name is Might-have-been:
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell."
"Was _that_ the landmark?
. . . . . . . . . .
"But lo! the path is missed; I must go back
And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring
Which once I stained ...
Yet though no light be left, nor bird now sing
As here I turn, I'll thank God, hastening,
That the same goal is still on the same track."
--ROSETTI.
Roland Tresham was buried beside his son, and the friends and the
places that had known him knew him no more. There were only strangers
to lay him in the grave. His wife was too worn out with watching and
grief to leave her bed; his sister was far away. Mr. Lanhearne and two
or three gentlemen whose acquaintance Roland had made at the club of
which Mr. Lanhearne was a member paid the last pitiful rites, and then
left him alone for ever.
Ada sat with the sorrowful widow. Her innocent heart was greatly
troubled lest her interest in Roland, though known only to herself,
had been an unintentional wrong. In every possible way she strove to
atone for Roland's happiness in her home and her own happiness in
Roland's presence. When she mentally contrasted these conditions with
the miserable conditions of the deserted wife and dying child, she
felt as if it would be impossible to balance the unkind and unmerited
difference. That she was not specially drawn to Denasia only forced
from her a more generous concern for the unhappy woman. And when death
or sorrow tears from life the mask of daily custom, then, without
regard to the accidents of birth, we behold ourselves, all alike sad
seekers among the shadows after light and peace.
And undoubtedly sympathy is like mercy; it blesses those who give it
as well as those who receive. As Ada and Denas talked of the great
mysteries of life and death, their souls felt the thrill of
comradeship. Denas was usually reticent about her own life, yet she
opened her heart to Ada, and as the two women sat together the day
after the funeral, the poor widow spent many hours in excusing the
dead and in blaming herself.
She spoke honestly of her vanity, of her desire to get the better of
Elizabeth by taking her brother from her, of the satisfaction she felt
in mortifying the pride of the Burrells and the Treshams--even of her
impatience and ill-temper with Roland because he was not able to
conquer the weaknesses which were as natural to him as the blood in
his body or the thought in his brain; because he could not alter the
adverse circumstances which, as soon as they touched American soil,
began to close around them.
"And my great grief is this," she cried, wringing her long, wasted
hands: "he has died before his time and he has gone so far away that
he neither sees my repentance nor hears my words of remorseful
sorrow."
"Would you desire the dead to see your sorrow, Mrs. Tresham?" said
Ada. "Sorrow is for the living, not for the dead."
"Oh, it is not enough to be seen by the living! I want the dead to
know that I grieve! When I have wept on my mother's breast and knelt
at my father's feet, I shall still long for poor Roland to know that I
am sorry for the cross looks and cross words and all the petty
discomforts which drove him from me--drove him to death before his
time; that is the cruellest thing of all."
Mr. Lanhearne entered the room as she spoke, and he sat down and
answered her: "To die before one's time, before one has seen and
heard, and enjoyed and suffered the full measure of life, may seem
hard, Mrs. Tresham, but there is something in this respect much
harder. I have just been with a man who has lived after his time. The
grave has swallowed up all his loves and all his joys, and he alone is
left of his family and friends. Over such lingering lives thick, dark
shadows fall, I can assure you. They have the loneliness of the grave
without its quiet sleep and its freedom from unkindness and suffering.
Let me advise you, as soon as you can bear the journey, to go to your
own people. It was your husband's desire."
"I know it was, sir. I have fought hunger and sorrow and death like a
cat. But there is no need to continue the fight. I will go to the good
father and mother that God gave me. I will weep no more rebellious
tears. I will surrender myself and wait for His comfort. I am but a
poor, suffering woman, but I know the hand that has smitten me."
And Ada bowed her head and repeated softly:
"They are most high who humblest at God's knees
Lie loving God, and trusting though He smite."
Then they spoke of the sea-journey, and Denas wished to go away as
soon as possible. "I shall get some money as soon as I arrive in
London," she said. "Lend me sufficient to pay my passage there."
"You have no occasion to borrow money, Mrs. Tresham," said Mr.
Lanhearne. "There is a sum due your husband which will be quite
sufficient to meet all your expenses home. I will send a man to secure
you a good berth. Shall it be for Saturday next?"
"I can go to-morrow very well."
"No, you cannot go to-morrow, Mrs. Tresham," answered Ada. "You must
have proper clothing to travel in. If you will permit me, I will
attend to this matter for you at once."
And though the proper clothing was a very prosaic comfort, it was a
tangible one to Denas. She was grateful to find herself clothed in
that modest, sombre decency which her condition claimed; to have all
the small proprieties of the season and the circumstances, all the
toilet necessities which are part of the expression of a refined
nature. For the poor lady who pitifully lamented the calamity which
had "reduced her to elegance" indicated no slight deprivation;
proper clothing for the occasions of life being both to men and
women one of those great decencies demanded by an austere and
suitable self-respect.
Faithfully did this good father and daughter fulfil to the last tittle
the demands of their almost super-sensitive hearts and consciences,
and if they sighed with relief when the duty was over, the sigh only
proved the duty to have been beyond the line of self-satisfaction and
a real sacrifice to the claims of a common humanity. Mr. Lanhearne
then turned his thoughts gladly toward Florida. He felt that the
invasion of so much strange sorrow into his home had altered its
atmosphere, and that he was human enough to be a little weary in
well-doing. Ada was also glad to escape the precincts haunted by the
form and the voice which it pained her conscience to remember and
pained her heart to forget. So in a few more days the large brown
house was closed and dark, and "the tender grace of a day that was
dead" was gone for evermore. The land of sunshine was before them, and
many of their friends were already there to give them welcome; yet
Ada's soul kept repeating, with a ceaseless, uncontrollable monotony,
one sad lament--
"Ah, but alas! for the smile that never but one face wore!
Ah, for the voice that has flown away like a bird to an unknown
shore!
Ah, for the face--the flower of flowers--that blossoms on earth no
more!"
She tried to hush this inner voice, to reason it into silence, to dull
its aching echo with song or speech or notes of loftier tones; but it
would not be quieted. And when she was left alone, when there was no
one near to comfort or strengthen, a great silence fell upon her. For
she indulged no stormy sorrow; her grief was a still rain that
fertilised and made fragrant her higher self. In her maiden heart she
had had a dream of being crowned with bride-flowers, and lo! it was
rue, and thyme gone to seed, and dead primroses that garlanded her
sad, unspoken love. But she wore them with a sweet, brave submission,
not affecting to disbelieve that time would surely heal love's aching
pain. For she knew that goodness was omnipotent to save and to
comfort.
In the mean time, as the Lanhearnes sailed southward Denas sailed
eastward, and in less than a couple of weeks half the circumference of
the world was between the lives so strangely and sorrowfully brought
together. Denas landed in Liverpool early in the morning, and without
delay went to London. She had business with Elizabeth, and she felt
constrained and restless until it should be accomplished. She
hesitated about going to the house in which she had spent with Roland
so many happy and sorrowful days, but when she entered the cab the
direction to it sprang naturally from her lips.
And there was already in her heart that tender fear that she might
forget, the fear that all who have loved and lost have trembled to
recognise, the fact that her sorrow might have an end, that she might
learn to dispense with what was once her life, that a little vulgar
existence with its stated meals and regular duties and petty pleasures
would ever fill the void in her love and life made by Roland's death.
So she tried, in the very place of her sweet bride memories, to bring
back the first passion of her widowed grief. She tried to fill the
empty chair with Roland's familiar form and the silent space with his
happy voice. Alas! other thoughts would intrude; considerations about
Elizabeth's attitude, about her home, about her future. For she knew
that this part of her life was finished; that nothing could ever bring
back its conditions. They had been absolutely barren conditions. Her
duties as a wife and a mother were over. Her career as a singer was
over. No single claim of friendship or interest from its past bound
her. When she had seen Elizabeth these last years of her being and
doing would be a shut book. Nothing but her change of name and,
perhaps, a little money would remain to testify that Denas Penelles
had ever been Denasia Tresham.
Do as she would, she could not keep these thoughts apart from her
memories of her lover and her husband. She arrested her mind
continually and bade herself remember the days of her gay bridal, or
else those two lonely graves far beyond the western sea; and then, ere
she was aware, her memories of the past had become speculations about
the future. And she was abashed by this arid, incurable egotism in
the most secret place of her soul. She felt it making itself known
continually in her hard determination to make the best of things; she
knew that it was this feeling which was determined to close the death
chamber, to deny all torturing memories; which said, in effect, "what
is finished is finished, and the dead are dead."
But the conflict wearied her almost to insensibility. She was also
physically exhausted by travel, and the next day she slept profoundly
until nearly the noon hour. It had been her intention to see Elizabeth
in the morning, and she was provoked at her own remissness, for what
she feared in reality happened--Elizabeth was out driving when she
reached her residence. The porter thought it would be six o'clock ere
she could receive any visitor, "business or no business."
Denas said she would call at six o'clock, and charged the man to tell
his mistress so.
But the visit and the engagement passed from the servant's mind. In
fact, he had, as he claimed, a very genteel mind. Callers who came in
a common cab did not find an entry into it. Elizabeth returned in due
season from her drive, drank a cup of tea, and then made her evening
toilet. For Lord Sudleigh was to dine with her, and Lord Sudleigh was
the most important person in Elizabeth's life. It was her intention,
as soon as she had paid the last tittle of mint, anise, and cummin to
Mr. Burrell's memory, to become Lady Sudleigh. Everyone said it was a
most proper alliance, the proposed bride having money and beauty and
the bridegroom-elect birth, political influence, and quite as much
love as was necessary to such a matrimonial contract.
Elizabeth, however, in spite of her pleasant prospect for the evening,
was in a bad temper. The bishop's wife had snubbed her in the drive,
and her dressmaker had disappointed her in a new costume. The March
wind also had reddened her face, and perhaps she had a premonition of
trouble, which she did not care to investigate. When informed that
there was a lady waiting to see her on important business, she simply
elected to let her wait until her toilet was finished. She had a
conviction that it was some officious patroness on a charity
mission--someone who wanted money for the good of other people. And as
there are times when we all feel the claims of charity to be an
unwarrantable imposition, so Elizabeth, blown-about, sun-browned,
snubbed, disappointed, and anxious about her lover, was not, on this
particular occasion, more to blame for want of courtesy than many
others have been.
Finally she descended to the drawing-room and was ready to receive her
visitor. There was a very large mirror in the room, and pending her
entrance Elizabeth stood before it noticing the set and flow of her
black lace dress, its heliotrope ribbons, and the sparkle of the
hidden jets upon the bodice. Some heliotrope blossoms were in her
breast, and her hands were covered with gloves of the same delicate
colour. Denas saw her thus; saw her reflection in the glass before she
turned to confront her.
For a moment Elizabeth was puzzled. The white face amid its sombre,
heavy draperies had a familiarity she strove to name, but could not.
But as Denasia came forward, some trick of head-carriage or of walking
revealed her personality, and Elizabeth cried out in a kind of angry
amazement:
"Denas! You here?"
"I am no more Denas to you than you are Elizabeth to me."
"Well, then, Mrs. Tresham! And pray where is my brother?"
"Dead."
"Dead? dead? Impossible! And if so, it is your fault, I know it is! I
had a letter from him--the last letter--he said he was coming to me."
She was frightfully pale; she staggered to a sofa, sat down, and
covered her face with her gloved hands. Denasia stood by a table
watching her emotion and half-doubting its genuineness. A silence
followed, so deep and long that Elizabeth could not endure it. She
stood up and looked at Denasia, reproach and accusation in every tone
and attitude. "Where did he die?" she asked.
"In New York."
"Of what did he die?"
"Of pneumonia."
"It was your fault, I am sure of it. Your fault in some way. My poor
Roland! He had left you, I know that; and I hoped everything for his
future."
"He had come back to me. He loved me better than ever. He died in my
arms--died adoring me. His last work on earth was to give me this list
of property, which I shall require you either to render back or to
buy from me."
Elizabeth knew well what was wanted, and her whole soul was in arms at
the demand. Yet it was a perfectly just one. By his father's will
Roland had been left certain pieces of valuable personal property:
family portraits and plate, two splendid cabinets, old china, Chinese
and Japanese carvings, many fine paintings, antique chairs, etc.,
etc., the whole being property which had either been long in the
Tresham family or endeared to it by special causes, and therefore left
personally to Roland as the representative of the Treshams. At the
break up of the Tresham home after his father's death, Roland had been
glad to leave these treasures in Elizabeth's care, nor in his
wandering life had the idea of claiming them ever come to him. As for
their sale, that would have been an indignity to his ancestors below
the contemplation of Roland.
Fortunately Mr. Tresham's lawyer had insisted upon Mrs. Burrell giving
Roland a list of the articles left in her charge and an acknowledgment
of Roland's right to them. "Life is so queer and has so many queer
turns," he said, "that nothing can be left to likelihoods. Mrs.
Burrell is not likely to die, but she may do so; and then there may be
a new Mrs. Burrell who may make trouble, and I can conceive of many
other complications which would render nugatory the intentions of the
late Mr. Tresham. The property must, therefore, be set behind the
bulwark of the law." Elizabeth herself had acknowledged this danger,
and she had done all that was required of her in order to keep the
Tresham family treasures within the keeping of the Treshams.
She was now confronted with her own acknowledgment and agreement, or
at least with a copy of it, and she was well aware that it would
be the greatest folly to deny the claim of Roland's wife. But the
idea of robbing her beautiful home for Denasia was very bitter to
her. She glanced around the room and imagined the precious cabinets
and china, the curious carvings and fine paintings taken away, and
then the alternative, the money she would have to pay to Denasia if
she retained them, came with equal force and clearness to her
intelligence.
"Mrs. Tresham," she said in a conciliating voice, "these objects can
be of no value to you."
"Roland told me they were worth at least two thousand pounds, perhaps
more. There is a picture of Turner's, which of----"
"What do you know about Turner? And can you really entertain the
thought of selling things so precious to our family?"
"Roland wished you to buy them. If you do not value them sufficiently
to do so, why should I keep them? In my father's cottage they would be
absurd."
"Your father's cottage? You are laughing at me!"
"I am too sorrowful a woman to laugh. A few weeks ago, if I had had
only one of these pictures I would have sold it for a mouthful of
bread--for a little coal to warm myself; oh, my God! for medicine to
save my child's life or to ease his passage to the grave."
"I had forgotten the child. Where is he?"
"By his father's side."
"That is well and best, doubtless."
"It is not well and best. What do you know? You have never been a
mother. God never gave you such sorrowful grace."
"We will return to the list, if you please. What do you propose to
do?"
"I have spoken to a man in Baker Street who deals in such things. If
you wish to buy them and will pay their fair value I will sell them to
you, because Roland desired you to have them. If you do not wish to
buy them or will not pay a fair price I will remove them to Baker
Street. There are others who will know their value."
"I advanced Roland a great deal of money."
"You gave him it. You demanded and accepted his thanks. The sums all
told would not pay for the use of the property."
"I shall do right, of course. Bring the man you have spoken of
to-morrow afternoon, and I also will have here an expert of the same
kind. I will pay you whatever they decide is a proper sum."
"That will satisfy me."
"I am sorry affairs have come to this point between us. I tried to be
kind to you. I think you have been very ungrateful."
"You were kind only to yourself. You never were a favourite in St.
Penfer. Other ladies did not often call upon you. In me you had a
companionship which you could control, you had your sewing done for
next to nothing, you had the news of the town brought to you. You
played upon my restless disposition, my love of fine clothing, my
ambition to be some one greater than Denas Penelles, and as soon as
good fortune came to you and you had everything you desired, you found
me a bore, a claimant on your sense of justice which you did not like
to meet. Understand that the fact of wearing silk and jewelry does not
give you the right to take up an immortal soul and play with it or
cast it aside as you find it convenient. I owe you the deepest grudge.
You made me dissatisfied with my own life, you showed me the pleasant
vistas of a different life, and when I hoped to enter with you, I
found myself outside and the door shut in my face. You have always
tried to make Roland dissatisfied with me. You insinuated, you
deplored, in every letter to him. You stabbed while you pretended to
kiss me. I found you out long ago. Everyone finds you out. You never
had a friend. You never will have one."
She spoke with that pitiless scorn which is the language of suppressed
passion. Elizabeth only lifted her eyebrows and turned away from her.
And Denasia knew that she had made a mistake, and yet she did not
regret it. There are times when it is a relief to be angry, whether we
do well to be so or not; when to lose the temper is better than to
keep it. Of course there are great and beautiful souls with whom
nothing turns to bitterness, but the soul of Denasia was not one of
these. It had been born ready to feel and ready to speak, and regarded
it as something of a virtue to do so.
She left Elizabeth's house in a very unhappy mood, and at a rapid walk
proceeded to her lodging in Bloomsbury. She would have felt the
confinement of a cab to be intolerable, but it was a relief to set her
personality against the friction of a million of encompassing wills.
And in a short time she succumbed to that condition of electricity
which they evolve, and permitted herself to be moved by it without
considering her steps.
At length she was hungry, and she turned into a place of refreshment
and ate with more healthy desire than she had felt for many months,
and then the restless, fretting creature within was pacified, and she
resolved to walk quietly to her room and sleep before she suffered
herself to think any more. But as she was following out this plan she
came to a famous theatre, and the name at the entrance attracted her.
"I will be my own judge," she said. "I will see, and hear, and be more
unmerciful to myself than any other could be."
So she entered the place and sat throughout three scenes. She did not
wait for the final act. There was no necessity. She had arrived at her
verdict. It was in her eyes and attitude when she left the building,
but she gave it no voice until she sat weary and sad before the
glimmering fire in her room.
"I could be Queen of England as easily as I could be a prima donna,"
she said mournfully. "There was perhaps a time--perhaps--perhaps, when
youth and beauty and love could have helped me, but that time has gone
for ever."
She said the words slowly, and the weight of despair was on each one.
For she realised that in her case effort had brought forth no lasting
fruit and that endurance had been without avail, and she was
exceedingly sorrowful. For there is a singular vitality in the idea of
public singing or acting when once it has taken root in any nature,
and Denasia had been subject that night to one of its periods of
revival. She had told herself that "she would probably have a thousand
pounds; that she could go to Italy and pay for the best teachers; that
it would please Roland if he knew, if he remembered, for her to do so;
that it would annoy Elizabeth in many ways if she became a singer;
that she would show the world it was possible to sing and act and yet
be in every respect womanly, pure-hearted, and blameless before God
and man."
These and many such ideas had filled her mind at intervals all the way
across the Atlantic, and her passionate renunciation of the stage,
made that miserable day when Roland deserted her, began to lose its
reasonableness and therefore its sense of obligation. After her
interview with Elizabeth, the question of money to carry out such
intentions was practically settled, and she had, therefore, only to
arrive at a positive personal conclusion. Once or twice in her public
career she had received what her heart told her was a just criticism.
It had not been a very flattering one, and Roland had passionately
denied its justice. But she felt that the hour had now come when she
must have the truth and accept the truth.
So she had tested herself by the natural and acquired abilities of the
greatest singer of the day. It was, perhaps, a pitiless standard, but
she felt that her safety demanded its extremity. Her comparisons made
her burn with shame at her own shortcomings. She wondered how Roland
could have been so deceived, how he could have hoped or believed in
her at all. She forgot that circumstances had quite altered Roland's
first intentions, and that in following out his secondary ones less
distinctive talent was sufficient. On their marriage if he had taken
her, as he proposed, to Italy; if the three last restless, miserable
years had been spent in repose, in a favourable climate under fine
instructors, with a happy, satisfied, hopeful affection to stimulate
and support her ambition--ah, then all of Roland's hopes might have
been fulfilled. But lack of patience as much as lack of money had
brought final failure. The blossom had been gathered and worn with but
small _eclat_, and there was now no hope of fruit.
Full of such sombre thoughts, she turned up the lights and looked at
herself. Gone was her radiant beauty, her splendid youth; gone also
her buoyant spirit and invincible courage. That night as she sat there
alone she buried for ever this hope of a life for which she was not
destined. Yet it was while sitting on that very hearth together Roland
and she had felt the joy of her first triumph at Willis Hall. She
could remember every incident of her return home the night of her
brilliant _debut_. How Roland had praised her and loved her. Neither
of them then thought the temporary success to be the first downward
step from their original grander ideal; the first step toward a
miserable failure. Now it was clear enough. Alas! alas! Why cannot
joy, as well as sorrow, open the eyes? Why are they only washed
clear-seeing with tears?
When the hopeless ceremony was over and she had fully accepted the lot
before her, she rose and with tear-filled eyes looked around the place
of her renunciation. She felt as if her husband ought to have some
consciousness of her disappointment; as if the longing in her heart
should bring him to her side. Where was he? Where had he gone to?
"Roland! Roland!" she whispered, and the silence beat upon her heart
like the blows of a hammer. Was he present? Did he hear her? She felt
until she reached the very rim of conscious feeling, and then? Alas!
nothing but a mighty mystery looming beyond.
Weary and exhausted with emotion, she lay down and slept, and in the
morning the courage born of a resolved mind was with her. When she had
finished her business with Elizabeth, then there was her father and
her mother and her real life again. She must go back and take it up
just where she had thrown it down. And this humiliating duty was all
that her own way had brought her. Never again would she take her
destiny out of the keeping of the good God who orders all things well.
On this resolution she stayed her heart, and somehow in her sleep
there had come to her a conviction that the time of smiles would
surely come back to her once more. For God giveth His children in
their sleep, and the sorrowful wake up comforted, and the weak
strong, because some angel has visited them and "they knew it not."
Elizabeth was quite prepared for her visitor. She was, indeed, anxious
to get the affair settled and to dismiss Denasia from her life for
ever. Her lawyer and appraiser were busy when Denasia arrived, and
without ceremony each article specified in Roland's list was examined
and valued. Elizabeth offered her sister-in-law no courtesy; she
barely bowed in response to her greeting, and there was a final very
severe struggle as to values. Mrs. Burrell had certainly hoped to
satisfy Denasia with a thousand pounds, but the official adjustment
was sixteen hundred pounds, and for this sum Roland's widow, who was
irritated by her sister-in-law's evident scorn and dislike, stubbornly
stood firm.
It is probable that Elizabeth would also have turned stubborn and have
suffered the articles to go to the auction-room had not her personal
pride and interests demanded the sacrifice. But she had already
introduced Lord Sudleigh to these family treasures, and she could not
endure to go to Sudleigh Castle and take with her no heirlooms to be
surety for her respectability. So that, after all, Denasia won her
rights easily, because a man whom she had never seen and never even
heard of pleaded her case for her. But she had no exceptional favour.
It is the people whom we do not know that are often our helpers. It is
the people who seem to have no possible connection with us that are
often the tools used by fate for our fortune.
When the transaction was fully over and Denasia had Elizabeth's cheque
in her pocket the day was nearly over. The business agents left
hurriedly and Denasia was going with them, when Elizabeth said:
"Return a moment, if you please, Mrs. Tresham. I have heard nothing
from you about my brother. I think it is your duty to give me some
information. I am very miserable," and she sat down and covered her
face. Her sobs, hardly restrained, touched Denasia. She was sorry for
the weeping woman, for she knew that if Elizabeth had loved any human
creature truly and unselfishly, it was her brother Roland.
"What can I tell you?" she asked.
"Something to comfort me, if you are not utterly heartless. Had he
doctors? help? comforts of any kind?"
"He had everything that money and love could procure. He died in Mr.
Lanhearne's house. I was at his side. Whatever could be done by human
skill to save his life was done."
"Did he name me often?"
"Yes."
"And you never said a word--never would have done--you were going away
without telling me. How could you be so cruel?"
"It was wrong. I should have told you. He spoke often about you. In
his delirium he believed himself with you. He called your name three
times just before he died; it was only a whisper then, he was so
weak."
Elizabeth wept bitterly, and Denasia, moved by many memories, could
not watch her unmoved. After a wretched pause she said:
"Good-bye! You are Roland's sister and he loved you. So then I cannot
really hate you. I forgive you all."
But Elizabeth did not answer. The loss of her brother, the loss of her
money--she was feeling that this woman had been the cause of all her
sorrows. Grief and anger swelled within her heart; she felt it to be
an intolerable wrong to be forgiven. She was silent until Denasia was
closing the door, then she rose hastily and followed her.
"Go!" she cried, "and never cross my path again. You have brought me
nothing but misery."
"It is quite just that I should bring you misery. Remember, now, that
if you do a wrong you will have to pay the price of it."
Trembling with anger and emotion, she clasped her purse tightly and
called a cab to take her to her lodging. The money was money, at any
rate. A poor exchange for love, certainly, but still Roland's last
gift to her. It proved that in his dying hours he loved her best of
all. He had put his family pride beneath her feet. He had put his
sister's interest second to her interest. She felt that every pound
represented to her so much of Roland's consideration and affection. It
was, too, a large sum of money. It made her in her own station a very
rich woman. If she put it in the St. Penfer bank it would insure her a
great deal of respect. That was one side of the question. The other
was less satisfactory. People would speculate as to how she had
become possessed of such a sum. Many would not scruple to say, "It was
sinful money, won in the devil's service." All who wished to be unkind
to her could find in it an occasion for hard sayings. In small
communities everything but prosperity is forgiven; that is never
really forgiven to anyone; and though Denasia did not find words for
this feeling, she was aware of it, because she was desirous to avoid
unnecessary ill-will.
She sat with the cheque in her hand a long time, considering what to do
with it. Her natural vanity and pride, her sense of superior
intelligence, education, travel, and experience urged her to take
whatever good it might bring her. And she went to sleep resolving to do
so. But she awoke in the midnight with a strange sense of humiliation.
In that time of questions she was troubled by soul-inquiries that came
one upon another close as the blows of a lash. She was then shocked
at the intentions with which she had fallen asleep. The little
vanities, and condescensions, and generosities which she had planned for
her own glory--how contemptible they appeared! And in the darkness she
could see their certain end--envy and hatred for herself and
dissatisfaction and loss of friends for her father and mother. Had
she not already given them sorrow enough?
Her right course was then clear as a band of light. She would
deposit the money at interest in a London bank. She would say nothing
at all about its possession. Before leaving for St. Penfer she would
buy a couple of printed gowns, such as would not be incongruous with
her surroundings. She would go back to her home and village as
empty-handed as she left them--a beggar, even, for a little love
and sympathy, for toleration for her wanderings, for forgiveness
for those deeds by which she had wounded the consciences and
self-respect of her own people and her own caste.
This determination awoke with her in the morning, and she followed it
out literally. The presents she had resolved to buy in order to get
herself a little favour were put out of consideration. She purchased
only a few plain garments for her own every-day wearing. She left her
money with strangers who attached no importance to it; and, with one
small American trunk holding easily all her possessions, she turned
her face once more to the little fishing village of St. Penfer by the
Sea.