THE "DARLING DENAS."
"... Good the more
Communicated, the more abundant grows."
--MILTON.
"So the boat was built. Aw, they wouldn't be hoult;
And every trennel and every boult
The best of stuff. Aw, didn' considher
The 'spense nor nothin'--not a fig!
And three lugs at her--that was the rig--
And raked a bit, three reg'lar scutchers,
And carried her canvas like a ducherss.
Chut! the trim is in the boat.
Ballast away! but the trim's in the float--
In the very make of her! That's the trimming!"
--T. E. BROWN.
Money in the bank is all the comfort to the material life that a good
conscience is to the moral life. Joan was restored to her best self by
the confidence her child had given her, and John entering his cottage
in the midst of a happy discussion between Denas, Tris, and his wife,
felt as if the weight of twenty years suddenly dropped away from him.
He thought it was Tris who brought the sunshine, and he rejoiced in
it, and induced the young man to tell them about the yacht's trip and
the old cities on the Mediterranean which he had visited.
Everyone sees strange places with their own mental and spiritual
sight, and Tris had seen Genoa and Venice and Rome and Corinth from
the standpoint of a Cornish Methodist fisherman. But apart from this
partiality he had made sensible observations of the strange ways of
building and living, and had come to the conviction that Cornish
people held the great secret of a happy life. As for the Mediterranean
itself, Tris considered it "a jade of a sea, nohow worth the praise it
got."
"You may read the Cornish seas like a book, John," he said, "but this
Mediterranean be this way--you have to watch it every minute. Turn
your back on it for a bite or a sup, and it will get the better of you
some way, and, most likely of all, with one of its dirty white
squalls. Then I tell you, John, it is all hands to reef! Quick! and if
a single breadth of canvas be showing, it is a rip and a roar and the
death of the yacht and of every man in her."
"And what of the yacht herself, Tris? Be she good-tempered and
good-mannered?"
"She do behave herself beautiful. The seas may fly over her
cross-trees, but if you make her trig she comes to her bearings like a
shot to its mark; shakes herself as if she was ready for a race, and
then away she do go--just like a sea-gull for a fish."
So they talked the evening away, and Denas listened and watched the
handsome yachtsman, kindling and laughing to the tales he told. And
when he went away she felt, as others did, the sudden fall in the
mental temperature and the chill and silence that follow any unnatural
excitement. But Denas, as well as John and Joan, were too simple for
such considerations. They only felt the change, and were sure that it
was Tris who brought the sunshine, and so, when he went, took it away
with him.
But after this night there was a different atmosphere in John
Penelles' cottage. John's unhappiness had been mainly caused by the
sight of his wife's anxiety and sorrow; and if Joan was her old self,
John was not the man to let the loss of his boat and his position make
him miserable. For in this little cottage the wife held the same
mighty power that the wife holds in all finer homes--the power to
either make her husband weak and sorrowful or to strengthen his heart
for anything. When Joan smiled, then John could not only enjoy the
present, but he could also bravely face the future. For when a man can
trust in his wife, then he can hope in his God and all things are
possible to him.
Denas also caught the trick of hoping and of being happy. She opened
her school with thirty scholars and found out her vocation. No one
could doubt the voice which had called her to this work; she went to
it as naturally as a bird goes to build its nest. She loved the
children and they loved her. At the end of the first week she found
herself compelled to make her number forty. The sweet authority
pleased her. The children's affection won her. Her natural power to
impart what knowledge she had gave her the sense of a benefaction.
Such loving allegiance! Such bigoted little adherents! Such blind
disciples as Denas had! In a couple of weeks she was the idol of
every child in St. Penfer by the Sea, and as mothers see through
their children, she was equally popular with the children of larger
growth.
One very singular incident of this popularity was the fact that every
child, without special intent, without the slightest thought of
offence, called their beloved teacher Denas Penelles. For a time she
corrected the mistake, but the name Tresham was strange and
unfamiliar. They looked at her with wide-open eyes and then went back
to the old word. Denas perceived that they heard her called Penelles
in their homes, and that it was useless to take offence where none was
intended. Yet the inferred wrong to her dead husband wounded her and
rekindled in her heart the fire of old affection.
"They want me to forget his very name," she thought angrily, and the
natural result was a determination to nurse with greater fondness the
memory which time and circumstances were daily doing their best to
efface.
In the mean time all had been going on satisfactorily about the new
fishing-smack. Tris had taken Mr. Arundel into his confidence. He
wished to have his permission to make a careful selection and to
attend to all matters connected with its proper transfer. And though
that gentleman's own feelings did not lie upon the surface of his
nature or explain themselves in childlike secrets and surprises, he
could understand and almost envy the wealth of emotions and illusions
that demanded such primitive expressions.
So he permitted Tris to absent himself frequently for such a laudable
purpose. Indeed, Mr. Arundel had seen the death of John's boat, and
this point of interest enabled him to feel something of the pleasure
and importance which centred around the boat now building to take its
place. For Tris had found in a yard ten miles north just the very kind
of smack John had always longed for--a boat not built by mathematical
measurements, but a wonderful, weatherly, flattish smack; that with a
jump would burst through a sea any size you like, and keep right side
up when the waves were fit to make a mouthful of her.
She was building for the pilchard season and was to be ready for the
middle of June. And at length she was finished and waiting to be
brought to her own harbour. If she had been a living, loving human
creature, her advent could not have been more eagerly longed for. Yet
there had been a short period of coolness between Tris and Denas, for
Tris in some moment of enthusiasm had gone beyond the line Denas had
marked out for him. And then she had been cold and silent and Tris had
been miserable. Joan, also, had taken the young man rather scornfully
to task.
"Tris," she said, "you be as knowing about a woman as Peter Mullet
was, and he was hanged for a fool. Be you looking to sow and reap in
the same month?"
"Not as I know by, but--but----"
"But you be so blind in love you could not see a hole in a ladder or
tell the signs on a woman's face. Denas be 'fraid of her own self. Let
her be. Let her be. If you do say a word now about your love she will
run back and hide herself in an old love--that be a woman's way. See,
now! As the old love quails the new love will fetch up--but time given
for quailing, Tris, for all that. Denas had a sight of trouble, Tris;
she may well be feared to try matrimony again."
"I would try and make her happy. I would be a good husband."
"Husbands! husbands! Tris, they be like pilchards--the bad ones are
very bad and the best ones be but middling."
Then the loving fellow said with a big sigh that he would wait--but
tired of waiting and going away again, and back only when God and Mr.
Arundel said so.
"Aw, then," answered Joan, "a good thing. Women have to miss a man
before they know they love him. Give Denas time to miss you, Tris, and
when the boat is home be a bit careless like. If she do wonder and
worry a little--a good thing for her. Women they be made up of
contraries, but sweet as blossoms and as good as gold for all that,
Tris."
On the twenty-fourth all was ready to bring home the boat. The boat
had been sold to Denas Tresham, the money paid, and the deed of
transfer to John Penelles ready made out. There had also been prepared
a paper for the St. Penfer _News_, which was to appear that day, and
which Lawyer Tremaine said would supply a ten-days' holiday gossip for
the citizens. And no day specially made for so happy an event could
have been lovelier. The sea was dimpling all over in the sunshine;
there was just the right wind, and just enough of it, to let Tris
reach harbour in the afternoon. John wondered at the air of excitement
in his cottage. Joan was singing, Denas had her best dress on, and
both had been busy making clotted cream, and junket, and pies of all
kinds.
In fact, John was a little depressed by this extravagance of light
hearts. He did not think the money Denas got from her school warranted
it, and he was heart-sick with the terrible fear that the busy season
was at hand and that he had found nothing to do. Adam Oliver's two
nephews from Cardiff had come to help him, and that shut one place;
and neither Trenager nor Penlow had said a word to him, and his brave
old soul sank within him.
"And what be in the wind with you women I know nothing of," he said
fretfully, "but you do have some unlikely old ways."
"What way be the wind, John, dear?"
"A little nor'ard, what there be of it--only a capful, though."
"Aw, then, John, look to the nor'ard, for good luck do come the way
the wind blows."
"Good luck do come the way God sends it, Joan."
"And many a time and oft it do be coming and us not thinking of it."
John nodded gravely. There was little hope in his heart, but he went
as usual to the pier and stood there watching the boats. Most of them
were now ready for the fishing. When the men on the lookout saw the
shadow of a dark cloud coming on and on over the sea, when they waved
the signal-bush right and left over their heads and sweeping their
feet, then they would out of harbour and shoot the seine. John was
very anxious. His lips were moving, though he was silent. His body was
mindful of the situation, his soul was praying.
"That be a strange boat," said Penlow after a long gossip; "well
managed, though. The man at her wheel, whoever he be, knows the set of
the tide round here as well as he knows his cabin. I wonder what boat
that be?"
John had no heart to echo the wonder. Another strange boat, doubtless,
bringing more fishers. He said it was getting tea-time, he would go
along. He knew that if the fish were found and there was a seat in a
boat it would be offered him. He would not give his mates the pain of
refusing or of apologising. The next day he would go to St. Ives.
When he reached his cottage he saw Joan and Denas on the door-step
watching the coming boat. Their smiles and interest hurt him. He
walked to the hearth and began to fill his pipe. Then Denas, with a
large paper in her hand, came to his side. She slipped on to his
knee--she laid her cheek against his cheek--she said softly, and oh,
so lovingly:
"Father! father! The boat coming--did you see her?"
"To be sure, Denas. I saw her, my dear."
"She is your boat, father--yours from masthead to keel! All yours!"
He looked at her a moment and then said:
"Speak them words again, Denas."
She spoke them again, smiling with frank delight and love into his
face.
"Thank God! Now tell me about it! Joan, my old dear, come and tell me
about it."
Then they sat down together and told him all, and showed him the St.
Penfer _News_ containing Lawyer Tremaine's statement regarding the
property which had come of right to Denas. And John listened until the
burden he had been carrying rolled quite away from his heart, and with
a great sigh he stood up and said loudly, over and over again, "Thank
God! Thank God! Thank God!" Then, as if a sudden hurry pressed him, he
cried--"Come, Joan! Come, Denas! Let us go to the pier and welcome her
home."
She was just tacking to reach harbour when they mingled with the crowd
of men and women already there. And Ann Trewillow was calling out:
"Why, it is Tris Penrose at her wheel!" Then as she came closer a man
shouted: "It be the _Darling Denas_. It must be John Penelles' boat.
To be sure it be John's boat!" This opinion was reached by an instant
conviction, and every face was turned to John.
"It be my boat, mates. Thank God and my little girl. It be my boat,
thank God!"
And then Tris was at the slip, and the anchor down and all the men
were as eager about the new craft as a group of horsemen could
possibly be about the points of some famous winner. Tris had to tell
every particular about her builder and her building, and as the
fishers were talking excitedly of these things, Joan gave a general
invitation to her friends, and they followed her to the cottage, and
heard the St. Penfer _News_ read, and had a plate of junket[5] and of
clotted cream.
And they were really proud and glad of what they heard. Denas had made
herself so beloved that no one had a grudging or, envious feeling.
Everyone considered how she had come back to them as if she had been
penniless; "and teaching our little ones too--with sixteen hundred
pounds at her back! Wonderful! Wonderful!" said first one and then
another of the women. Indeed, if Denas had thought out a plan to make
herself honoured and popular, she could hardly have conceived of one
more in unison with the simple souls she had to influence. They could
not sleep for talking about it. Denas Penelles was a veritable romance
to them.
"And fair she was and fair she be!" said Mary Oliver, a good woman,
with not a pinch of pride in her make-up. "And if Tris Penrose win her
and she win him, a proper wedding it will be--a wedding made by their
guardian angel. I do think that." And the group of women present
answered one and then another, "A proper wedding it will be, to be
sure."
In the evening there was a great praise-meeting at John's cottage; for
in St. Penfer all rejoicing and all sorrow ended in a religious
meeting. And Denas and Tris sang out of the same hymn-book, and sat
side by side as they listened to John's quaintly eloquent tribute to
the God "who did always keep faith with His children." "I was like to
lose sight of my God," he cried, "but my God never did lose sight of
me. God's children be well off, He goes so neighbourly with them. He
is their pilot and their home-bringer. I did weep to myself all last
night; but just as His promise says, joy did come in the morning." And
then John burst into song, and all his mates and neighbours with him.
And it is in such holy, exalted atmospheres that love reaches its
sweetest, fairest strength and bloom. Tris had no need of words. Words
would have blundered, and hampered, and darkened all he had to say.
One look at Denas as they closed the book together--one look as he
held her hand on the door-step, and she knew more than words could
ever have said. She saw through his eyes to the bottom of his clear,
honest soul, and she knew that he loved her as men love who find in
one woman only the song of life, the master-key of all their being.
She expected Tris would come and see her the next day, but Ann
Trewillow brought word that he had sailed with Mr. Arundel. Tris had
been expecting the order, and the yacht had only been waiting for
guests who had suddenly arrived. Denas was rather pleased. She was not
yet ready to admit a new love. She felt that in either refusing or
accepting Tris' affection she would be doing both herself and Tris an
injustice. A love that does not spring into existence perfect needs
cautious tending; too much sunshine, too much care, too constant
watching will slay it. There must be time given for it to grow.
Without reasoning on the matter, Denas felt that absence would be a
good thing. She was afraid of being driven by emotion or by
circumstances into a mistaken position. And she had now an absorbing
interest in her life. Her school was a delight. No consideration of
money qualified her pleasure in her pupils. She was eager to teach all
she knew. She was eager to learn, that she might teach more. As the
weeks went by her school got a local fame; it was considered a great
privilege to obtain a place in it.
Good fortune seemed to have come to St. Penfer by the Sea when
Denas came back to it. Never had there been a more abundant
sea-harvest than that summer. The _Darling Denas_ brought luck to
the whole fleet. She was a swift sailer, always first on the
fishing-ground and always first in harbour again; and it was a great
pleasure to Denas to watch her namesake leading out and leading home
the brown-sailed bread-winners of the hamlet. When the time and the
tide and the weather all served, Denas might now often be seen, with
her mother and the rest of the fishermen's wives, standing on the
wind-blown pier watching the boats out in the evening.
There had been a time when she had positively declined the loving
ceremony--when she had hated the thought of any community in such
feelings--when the large brown faces of the wives and mothers and the
sad patience of their attitude had seemed to her only the visible
signs of a poor and sorrowful life. And even yet, as she stood among
them she was haunted by a rhyme she had read in some picture paper
years ago--a rhyme that so pathetically glanced at love that dwelt
between life and death that she never could see a group of fishermen's
wives on the pier watching the boats outside without saying it to
herself:
"They gazed on the boats from the pier, ah, me!
Till their sails swelled in the wind,
Till darkness dropped down over the sea
And their eyes with tears were blind.
Then home they turned, and they never spoke,
These daughters and wives of the fisher-folk."
But years and experience had taught her the falsehood of extremes; she
knew now that life has many intermediate colours between lamp-black
and rose-pink, and that if the fisherman's wife had hours of anxious
watching, she had also many hours of such rapturous love as comes
sparingly to others--love that is the portion of those who come back
from the very grave with the shadow of death on their face.
In the autumn Tris returned for a few days, but he was so busy that he
could not leave the yacht. She was being provisioned and put in order
for the long Mediterranean winter voyage, and Tris was in constant
demand. But John and Joan and Denas walked over to St. Clair to bid
him good-bye. And never had Tris looked so handsome and so manly. His
air of authority became him. In a fishing-boat men are equal, but on
this lordly pleasure-boat it was very different. Tris said to one man
go and to another come, and they obeyed him with deference and
alacrity. This masterful condition impressed Denas greatly. She
thought of Tris with a respect which promised far more than mere
admiration for his beauty or his picturesque dress.
After Tris was gone the winter came rapidly, but Denas did not dread
it. Neither did John nor Joan. John looked upon his boat as a
veritable godsend. What danger could come to him on a craft so
blessed? All her takes were large and fortunate. The other boats
thought it lucky to sail in her wake. On whatever side the _Darling
Denas_ cast her bait, they knew it was right to cast on that side
also.
Joan was happy in her husband's happiness; she was happy in her
unstinted housekeeping; she was now particularly happy in Denas'
school. The little lads and lasses brought all their news, all their
joys and sorrows to Denas; and when Denas went home every day, Joan,
with her knitting in her hands, was waiting to give her a dainty meal
and to chat with her over all she had heard and all she had done.
And Denas was happy. When she mentally contrasted this busy, loving
winter with the sorrows of the previous one, with the hunger and cold
and poverty, the anguish of death and the loneliness, she could not
but be grateful for the little home-harbour which her storm-tossed
heart had found again. If she had a regret, it was that she could not
retain her hold upon her finished life. Every time she asked her heart
after Roland, memory gave her pictures in fainter and fainter and
fainter colours. Roland was drifting farther and farther away.
She could no longer weep at his name. A gentle melancholy, a
half-sacred remoteness invested the years in which he had been the
light of her life. For
"When the lamp is shattered,
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scattered,
The rainbow's glory is fled."
Mercifully, youth has this marvellous elasticity. And the children
filled all the vacant places in her life. For as yet she did not think
much nor at all decidedly about Tris. If Roland was slipping away from
memory, Tris by no means filled her heart. Yet she was pleased when
Ann Trewillow's little maid Gillian told her one morning:
"Master Arundel's yacht be come into harbour safe and sound, and
Captain Tris, he be brave and hearty, and busy all to get ashore
again. And my mother do say Mr. Arundel he be going to marry a fine
lady, and great doings at the Abbey, no doubt. And mother do say, too,
that Captain Tris will be marrying you. And I was a brave bit
frightened at that news, and I up and answered mother: 'It bean't so.
Miss Denas likes better teaching us boys and girls.' I said that, and
wishing it so with all my heart."
And Denas, seeing that the boys and girls were looking anxiously at
her for an assurance of this position, said positively:
"I am happier with you, children, than I could be with anyone else,
and I do not intend to marry at all."
"Never? Say never!"
"Well, then--never."
Yet there was a faint longing in her heart for love all her own. A man
can love what others love, but a woman wants something or someone to
love that is all her own. And she was interested enough in Tris'
return to dress with more than usual care that evening. She felt sure
he would come, and she put on her best black gown and did not brush
the ripples out of her front hair, but let the tiny tendrils soften
the austere gravity of her face and make that slight shadow behind the
ears which is so womanly and becoming.
About seven o'clock she heard his footsteps on the shingle and the gay
whistle to which they timed themselves. Joan went to the door to
welcome him. Denas stood up as he entered, and then, meeting his
ardent gaze, trembled and flushed and sat down again. He sat down
beside her. He told her how much already he had heard of her gracious
work in the village. He said it was worth going to France and Italy
and Greece, only to come back and see how much more lovely than all
other women the Cornish women were. And by and by he took from his
pocket the most exquisite kerchief of Maltese lace and a finely-carved
set of corals. Denas would have been less than a woman had she not
been charmed with the beautiful objects. She let Tris knot the lovely
silky lace around her throat, and she went to her mirror and put the
carved coral comb among her fair, abundant tresses, and the rings in
her ears, and the necklace and the locket round her white slender
throat.
Then Tris looked at her as if he had met a goddess in a wilderness;
and Joan, with her hands against her sides, congratulated and praised
herself for having given to St. Penfer by the Sea a daughter so lovely
and so good.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Junket is made of fresh milk, spirits, spices, sugar; curdled with
rennet and eaten with clotted cream.