ONLY FRIENDS.
"Stay at home, my heart, and rest,
Home-keeping hearts are happiest;
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care--
To stay at home is best."
--SONG.
"... Those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day;
Are yet a master-sight of all our seeing."
--WORDSWORTH.
Only those who have experienced the sensation can tell how strange and
sad is the feeling with which the soul turns away from a destiny
accomplished. When Denas had deposited her money in the Clydesdale
Bank and made the few purchases she thought proper and prudent, she
felt that one room of the house of life was barred for ever against
her return to it.
For a few years her experiences had been strangely interwoven with
those of the Treshams. To what purpose? Why had they been so? As far
as this existence was concerned, it seemed a relationship that might
well have been omitted. But who can tell what circumstances went
before it or what were to follow? For all human beings leave behind
them as they go through life a train of events which are due either to
impulses originating in a previous existence or are the seeds of
events which are to be perfected in a future one; what we sow, that we
shall surely reap.
Leaving London, such thoughts of something final, at least as far as
this probation was concerned, greatly depressed Denas. "Never more,
never more," was the monotonous refrain that sprang from her soul to
her lips. But it is a wise provision of the Merciful One that the
past, in a healthy mind, very soon loses its charm, and the things
that are present take the first place.
"I cannot bring anything back. I do not think I would bring anything
back if I could. I have been very unhappy and restless in the past.
Every pleasure I had was tithed by sorrow. Roland loved me, but I
brought him only disappointment. I loved Roland, and yet all my
efforts to make him happy were failures. Roland has been taken from
me. Our child has been taken away from me. Elizabeth I have put
away--death could not sever us more effectually. I am going back to my
own people and my own life, and I pray God to give me a contented
heart in it."
These were the colour of her reflections as the train bore her swiftly
to the fortune of her future years. She had no enthusiasm about them.
She thought she knew all the possibilities they kept. She looked for
no extraordinary thing, for no special favour to brighten their
uniform occupations and simple pleasures. She had taken the first
train she could, without considering the time of its arrival in St.
Penfer. She told herself that there would be a certain amount of
gossip about her return, and that it could not be avoided by either a
public or private arrival. Still, she was glad when the sun set and
the shadows of the night were stretched out--glad that the moon was
too young to give much light, and that it was quite nine o'clock when
the St. Penfer station was reached.
A few people were on the platform, but none of them were thinking of
Mrs. Tresham, and the woman so simply dressed and veiled in black made
no impression on anyone. She left her trunk in the baggage-room and
went by the familiar road down the cliff-breast. It had been raining,
of course, and the ground was heavy and wet; but the sky was clear,
and the half-moon made a half-twilight among the bare branches and
shed a faint bar of light across the ocean.
At the last reach she stood still a moment and looked at the clustered
cottages and the boats swaying softly on the incoming tide. A great
peace was over the place. The very houses seemed to be resting. There
was fire or candle light in every glimmering square of their windows;
but not a man, or a woman, or a child in sight. As she drew near to
her father's cottage, she saw that it was very brightly lighted; and
then she remembered that it was Friday night, and that very likely the
weekly religious meeting was being held there. That would account for
the diffused quiet of the whole village.
The thought made her pause. She had no desire to turn her home-coming
into a scene. So she walked softly to the back of the little house and
entered the curing shed. There was only a slight door--a door very
seldom tightly closed--between this shed and the cottage room. She
knew all its arrangements. It was called a curing shed, but in reality
it had long been appropriated to domestic purposes. Joan kept her milk
and provisions in it, and used it as a kind of kitchen. Every shelf
and stool, almost every plate and basin, had its place there, and
Denas knew them. She went to the milk pitcher and drank a deep
draught; and then she took a little three-legged stool, and placing it
gently by the door, sat down to listen and to wait.
Her father was talking in that soft, chanting tone used by the fishers
of St. Penfer, and the drawling intonations, with the occasional rise
of the voice at the end of a sentence, came to the ears of Denas with
the pleasant familiarity of an old song.
As he ceased speaking some woman began to sing "The Ninety-and-Nine,"
and so singing they rose and passed out of the cottage and to their
own homes. One by one the echoes of their voices ceased, until, at the
last verse, only John and Joan were singing. As they finished, Denas
looked into the room. Joan was lifting the big Bible covered with
green baize. Between this cover and the binding all the letters Denas
had sent them were kept, and the fond mother was touching and
straightening them. John, with his pipe in one hand, was lifting the
other to the shelf above his head for his tobacco-jar. The last words
of the hymn were still on their lips.
Denas opened the door and stood just within the room, looking at them.
Both fixed their eyes upon her. They thought they saw a spirit. They
were speechless.
"Father! Mother! It is Denas!"
She came forward quickly as she spoke. Joan uttered one piercing cry.
John let his pipe fall to pieces on the hearthstone and drew his child
within his arms. "It be Denas! It be Denas! her own dear self," he
said, and he sat down and took her to his breast, and the poor girl
snuggled her head into his big beard, and he kissed away her tears and
soothed her as he had done when she was only a baby.
And then poor Joan was on the rug at their feet. She was taking the
wet stockings and shoes off of her daughter's feet; she was drying
them gently with her apron, fondling and kissing them as she had been
used to do when her little Denas came in from the boats or the school
wet-footed. And Denas was stooping to her mother and kissing the happy
tears off her face, and the conversation was only in those single
words that are too sweet to mix with other words; until Joan, with
that womanly instinct that never fails in such extremities, began to
bring into the excited tone those tender material cares that make love
possible and life-like.
"Oh, my darling," she cried, "your little feet be dripping wet, and
you be hungry, I know, and we will have a cup of tea. And, Denas,
there be such a pie in the cupboard. And a bowl of clotted cream, too.
It is just like the good God knew my girl was coming home. And I
wonder who put it into my heart to have a mother's welcome for her?
And how be your husband, my dear?"
"He is dead, mother."
"God's peace on him!"
"And the little lad, Denas--my little grandson that be called John
after me."
"He is dead, too, father."
Then they were speechless, and they kissed her again and mingled their
tears with her tears, and John felt a sudden lonely place where he had
put this poor little grandson whom he was never to see.
Then Denas began to drink her warm tea and to talk to her parents; but
they said no words but kind words of the dead. They listened to the
pitiful taking-away of the young man, and before the majesty of death
they forgot their anger and their dislike, and left him hopefully to
the mercy of the Merciful. For if John and Joan knew anything, they
knew that none of us shall enter paradise except God cover us with His
mercy.
And not one word of all her trouble did Denas titter. She spoke only
of Roland's great love for her; of their trials endured together; of
his resignation to death; of her own loneliness and suffering since
his burial; and then, clasping her father's and mother's hands, she
said:
"So I have come back to you. I have come back to my old life. I shall
never act again. I shall sing no more in this world. That life is
over. It was not a happy life. Without Roland it would be beyond my
power to endure it."
"You be welcome here as the sunshine. Oh, my dear girl, you be light
to my eyes and joy to my heart, and there is no trouble can hurt me
much now."
Then Joan said: "'Twas this very morning I put clean linen on your
bed, Denas. I swept the room, and then made the pie, and clotted the
cream, and I never knew who I did it for. Oh, Denas, what a godsend
you do be! John, my old dear, our life be turned to sunshine now."
And long after Denas had fallen asleep they sat by their fire and
talked of their child's sorrow, and Joan got up frequently and took a
candle and, shading it with her hand, went and looked to see if the
girl was all right. When Denas was a babe in the cradle, Joan had been
used to satisfy her motherly longing in the same way. Her widowed
child was still her baby.
In the morning John went from cottage to cottage and told his friends
to come and rejoice with him. For really to John "the dead was alive
and the lost was found." And it was a great wonderment in the village;
men nor women could talk of anything else but the return of Denas
Tresham. Many were really glad to see her; and if some visited the
poor, stricken woman thinking to add a homily to God's smiting, they
were abashed by her evident suffering, by her pallor and her wasted
form, and the sombre plainness of her black garments. For some days
life was thus kept at a tension beyond its natural strain, and Joan
and her daughter had no time to recover the every-day atmosphere. But
no excitement outlasts the week's perchances and changes, and after
the second Sunday all her acquaintances had seen Denas, and curiosity
and interest were at their normal standard.
All her acquaintances but Tris Penrose. Denas wondered that he did not
come to see her, and yet she had a shy dislike to make inquiries about
him. For the love of Tris Penrose for Denas Penelles had been the
village romance ever since they were children together, and she feared
that a word from her about him might set the women to smiling and
sympathising and to taking her affairs out of her own hands.
As the home-life settled to its usual colour and cares, Denas became
conscious of a change in it. She saw that her father went very seldom
to sea, that he was depressed and restless, and that her mother, in a
great measure, echoed his moods. And she was obliged to confess that
she was terribly weary. There was little housework to do, except what
fell naturally to Joan's care, and interference with these duties
appeared to annoy the methodical old woman. The knitting was far
ahead, there were no nets to mend; and when Denas had made herself a
couple of dresses, there seemed to be no work for her to do. And she
was not specially fond of reading. Culture and study she could
understand if their definite end was money; but for the simple love
of information or pleasure books were not attractive to her.
So in a month she had come to a place in her experience when it was a
consolation to think of that sixteen hundred pounds in London. She
might yet find it necessary to her happiness; for without some change
she could not much longer endure the idleness and monotony of her
life. Fortunately the change came. One morning a woman visited the
cottage, and the sole burden of her conversation was the lack of a
school in St. Penfer by the Sea to which the fisher-children might go
in the morning.
"Here be my six little uns," she cried, "and up the cliff they must
hurry all, through any wind or weather, or learn nothing. And then
they be that tired when they do get home again, they be no use at all
about the bait-boxes or the boats. There be sixty school-going
children in the village, and I do say there ought to be a school here
for them."
And suddenly it came into the heart of Denas to open a school. Pay or
no pay, she was sure she would enjoy the work, and that afternoon she
went about it. An empty cottage was secured, a fisher-carpenter agreed
to make the benches, and at an outlay of two or three pounds she
provided all that was necessary. The affair made a great stir in the
hamlet. She had more applications for admission than the cottage would
hold, and she selected from these thirty of the youngest of the
children.
For the first time in many months Denas was sensible of enthusiasm in
her employment. But Joan did not apparently share her hopes or her
pleasure. She was silent and depressed and answered Denas with a
slight air of injury.
"They have agreed to pay a penny a week for each child," Denas said to
her mother.
"Well, Denas, some will pay and some will never pay."
"To be sure. I know that, mother. But it does not much matter."
"Aw, then, it do matter, my girl--it do matter, a great deal." And
Joan began to cry a little and to arrange her crockery with far more
noise than was necessary.
"Dear mother, what is it? Are you in trouble of any kind?"
"Aw, then, Denas, I be troubled to think you never saw your father's
trouble. He be sad and anxious enough, God knows. And no one to say
'here, John,' or 'there, John,' or give him a helping hand in any
way."
"Sit down, mother, and tell me all. I have seen that father's ways are
changed and that he seldom goes to the fishing. I hoped the reason was
that he had no longer any need to go regularly."
"No need? Aw, my dear, he has no boat!"
"No boat! Mother, what do you mean to tell me?"
"I mean, child, that on the same night the steamer _Lorne_ was wrecked
your father lost his boat and his nets, and barely got to land with
his life--never would have done that but for Tris Penrose, who lost
all, too--and both of them at the mercy of the waves when the
life-boat reached them. Aw, my dear, a bad night. And bad times ever
since for your father. Now and then he do get a night with Trenager,
or Penlow, or Adam Oliver; but they be only making a job for him. And
when pilchard time comes, 'tis to St. Ives he must go and hire himself
out--at his age, too. It makes me ugly, Denas. My old dear hiring
himself out after he have sailed his own boat ever since man he was.
And then to see you spending pounds and pounds on school-benches and
books, and talking of it not mattering if you was paid or not paid;
and me weighing every penny-piece, and your father counting the
pipefuls in his tobacco-jar. Aw, 'tis cruel hard! Cruel! cruel!"
"Now, then, mother, dry your eyes--and there--let me kiss them dry.
Listen: Father shall have the finest fishing-boat that sails out of
any Cornish port. Oh, mother, dear! Spend every penny you want to
spend, and I will go to the church town this afternoon to buy father
tobacco for a whole year."
"Let me cry! Let me cry for joy, Denas! Let me cry for joy! You have
rolled a stone off my heart. Be you rich, dear?"
"Not rich, mother, but I have sixteen hundred pounds at interest."
"Sixteen hundred silent pounds, and they might have been busy, happy,
working pounds! Aw, Denas, what hours of black care the knowing of
them might have saved us. But there, then--I had forgotten. The money
be dance money and theatre money, and your father will not touch a
penny of it. I do know he will not."
"Mother, when I stopped singing--when I left the theatre for ever I
had not in my purse one half-penny. Roland gave me fifty dollars; that
came from Elizabeth--that was all I had. When it was gone, Roland was
employed by Mr. Lanhearne. I told you about him."
"Yes, dear. How then?"
"Roland's father left him pictures and silver plate and many valuable
things belonging to the Treshams, and when Roland died they were mine.
Elizabeth bought them from me. They were worth two thousand pounds;
she gave me sixteen hundred pounds."
"Why didn't you tell father and me? 'Twas cruel thoughtless of you."
"No, no! I wanted to come back to you as I left you--just Denas--without
anything but your love to ask favour from. If I had come swelling
myself like a great lady, worth sixteen hundred pounds, how all the
people would have hated me! What dreadful things they would have said!
Father would have had his hands full and his heart full to make this
one and that one keep the insult behind their lips. Oh, 'twould have
been a broad defiance to evil of every kind. I did think, too, that
father had some money in St. Merryn's Bank."
"To be sure. And so he did. But there--your aunt Helen's husband was
drowned last winter, and nothing laid by to bury him, and father had
it to do; and then there was a mortgage on the cottage, and that was
to lift, or no roof to cover Helen and her children. So with this and
that the one hundred pounds went away to forty pounds. That be for
our own burying. There be twenty pounds of yours there."
"Mine is yours!" Then rising quickly, she struck her hands sharply
together and cried out: "ONE and ALL! ONE and ALL!"[4]
And Joan answered her promptly, letting the towel fall from her grasp
to imitate the sharp smiting of the hands as with beaming face she
repeated the heart-stirring cry.
"ONE and ALL! ONE and ALL! Denas. Aw, my girl, there was a time when I
said in my anger I was sorry I gave you suck. This day I be right glad
of it! You be true blood! Cornish clean through, Denas!"
"Yes, I be true Cornish, mother, and the money I have is honest money.
Father can take it without a doubt. But I will see Lawyer Tremaine,
and he shall put the sum I got in the St. Penfer _News_, and tell what
I got it for, and none can say I did wrong to take my widow right."
"I be so happy, Denas! I be so happy! My old dear will have his own
boat! My old dear will have his own boat!"
"Now, mother, neither you nor I can buy a boat. Shall we tell father
and let him choose for himself?"
Joan knew this was the most prudent plan, but that love of "surprise
pleasures" which is a dominant passion in children and uneducated
natures would not let Joan admit at once this solution of the
difficulty. How could she forego the delight of all the private
consultations; of the bringing home of the boat; of the wonder of the
villagers; of John's happy amazement? She could not bear to
contemplate the prosaic, commonplace method of sending John to buy his
own boat when it was within the power of Denas and herself to be an
unseen gracious providence to him. So after a moment's thought she
said: "There be Tris Penrose. It will be busy all and happy all for
him to be about such a job."
"I have not seen Tris since I came home. He is the only one who has
not come to say welcome to me."
"Aw, then, 'twas only yesterday he got home himself. He has been away
with Mr. Arundel on his yacht."
"You never told me."
"You never asked. I thought, then, you didn't want Tris to be named."
"But what for shouldn't I name Tris?"
"La! my dear, the love in Tris' heart was a trouble to you. You were
saying that often."
"But Tris knows about fishing-boats?"
"Who knows more?"
"And what kind of a boat father would like best?"
"None can tell that as well."
"And Tris is home again?"
"That be true. Ann Trewillow told me, and she be working at the Abbey
two days in the week."
"Has Mr. Arundel bought the Abbey?"
"He has done that, and it be made a grand place now. And when Tris
lost his boat trying to save your father's life and boat, Mr. Arundel
was with the coast-guard and saw him. And he said: 'A fine young man!
A fine young man!' So the next thing was, he spoke to Tris and hired
him to sail his yacht. And 'tis far off, by the way of Giberaltar,
they have been--yet home at last, thank God!"
"Tris will be sure to come here, I suppose?"
"Ann Trewillow told him you were home--a widow, and all; he will be
here as soon as he can leave the yacht. It is here he comes first of
all as soon as he touches land again."
"Then we will speak to him about the boat."
"To be sure. And I do wish he would hurry all and show himself. New
boats be building, but the best may get sold--a day might make a
difference."
"And now, mother, you must try and lift the care from father's heart.
Let him know, some way, that money troubles are over and that he may
carry his head up. You can do it--a little word--a little look from
you--he will understand."
"Aw, then, Denas, a smile is enough. I can lift my eyelids, and he'll
see the light under them and catch it in his heart. John isn't a
woman. Thank God, he can be happy and ask no questions--trusting all.
Your father be a good man to trust and hope."
Then the day, that had seemed to stretch itself out so long and
wearily, was all too short for Joan and Denas. They talked about the
money freely and happily, and Denas could now tell her mother all the
circumstances of her visit to Elizabeth. They were full of interest to
the simple woman. She enjoyed hearing about the dress Elizabeth wore;
about her house, her anger, her disappointment, and hard reluctance to
pay money for the treasures she had begun to regard as her own.
So the morning passed quickly away, and in the afternoon Denas went
into the village to look after her school-room. It was such a lovely
spring day. The sky was so blue, the sea was so blue, the earth was so
green and sweet, and the air so fresh and clear that Denas could not
but be glad that she was alive to be cheered by them. Not for a very
long time had she felt so calmly happy, so hopeful of the future, so
resigned to the past.
After her business in the village was over she walked toward the
cliff. She had some idea that it would be pleasant to go up to the
church town, but just where the trees and underwood came near to the
shingle a little bird singing on a May-thorn beguiled her to listen.
Then the songster went on and on, as if it called her, and Denas
followed its music; until, by and by, she came to where the shingle
was but a narrow strip, and the verdure retreated, and the rocks grew
larger and higher; and, anon, she was at the promontory between St.
Penfer and St. Clair.
It would now be impossible to go up the cliff and back again before
tea-time, and she sat down to rest a little before returning home. She
sat longer than she intended, for the dreamy, monotonous murmur of the
waves and the stillness and solitude predisposed her to that kind of
drifting thought which keeps assuring time: "I am going directly."
She was effectually roused at last by the sound of a clear, strong
voice whistling a charming melody. She sat quite still. A conviction
that it was Tris Penrose came into her heart. She wondered if he would
notice--know--speak to her. Tris saw her figure as quickly as it came
within his vision, and as quickly as he saw it he knew who was
present. He ceased whistling and cried out cheerily:
"Denas? What, Denas?"
She stood up then and held out her hands to him. And she was startled
beyond measure by the Tris that met her gaze. Naturally a very
handsome man, his beauty was made most attractive by a sailor suit of
blue broadcloth. His throat was open to the sea breeze, a blue
kerchief tied around it in a sailor's knot. And then her eyes wandered
to his sun-browned face, close-curling black hair, and the little
blue, gold-trimmed cap set upon the curls. The whole filled her with a
pleasant wonder. She made a little time over his splendour, and asked
if he was going to the pilchard fishing in such finery. And he took
all her hurried, laughing, fluttering remarks with the greatest
good-humour. He said, indeed, that he had been told she was home
again, and that he wore the dress because he was coming to see her.
Then they sat down, and she told Tris what she desired to do for her
father, and Tris entered into the project as enthusiastically as if he
was a child. Never before had Tris felt so heart-satisfied. It was
such a joy to have Denas beside him; such a joy to know that she was
free again; such a joy to share a secret with her. And gradually the
effusiveness of their first meeting toned itself down to quiet,
restful confidence, and then they rose together and began to walk
slowly toward the cottage. For of course Joan was to be consulted, and
besides, Tris had a present for her in his pocket.
The westering sun sent level rays of sunshine before them, and they
tried involuntarily to step in it as they used to do when they were
children. Tris could not help a smile as they did so, and then one of
those closely personal conversations began whose initial point is
always: "And do you remember?" Tris remembered everything, and
especially one Saturday when they ran away together to a little fairy
cove and made boats all day long. Yes, every movement of that happy
day was in Tris' heart, and he told Denas that the same pebbly shore
was still there, and that often he fancied he heard on it the beat of
their little pattering, naked feet, and wished that they could have
been children upon the shore for ever, and ever, and evermore.
"I do not think that would have been nice at all, Tris," answered
Denas. "It is better to be grown up. You were only good to play with
then. I could not have asked you to go and buy a boat for father,
could I?"
And Tris looked at her sweet, pale face, and noting how the pink
colour rushed into her cheeks to answer his looks, thought how right
she was, and that it was much better to have Denas a woman to be loved
than a child to be played with.
And somehow, after this, they had no more words to say, and Tris
walked at her side under his old embarrassment of silence. Nor could
Denas talk. If she tried to do so, then she raised her eyes, and then
Tris' eyes looking into hers seemed to reproach her for the words she
did not say. And if she kept her eyes on the shingle, she still felt
Tris to be looking at her, questioning her, loving her just as he used
to do--and she could not bear it--never! never! At the first
opportunity she must make Tris understand that they could only be
friends--friends only--and nothing, positively nothing more.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] The effect of this Cornish sentiment upon the Cornish heart is
mighty, as it is past reasoning about. A Cornish friend of mine
was in a silver mine among the Andes, and looking at the big,
bearded men around, he suddenly called out "ONE and ALL!" In an
instant four of the men had dropped their tools and were holding
his hands in as brotherly fashion as if the tie of blood was
between them. It is, indeed, one of those shibboleths of race
which move the soul to its most ancient depths. The malign
influences which destroy even the domestic affections touch not
the deeper sense of race. Age only increases its intensity, and
being a purely unselfish love, we may believe that it survives
death and claims the heritage of eternity.