“LOOK THROUGH MINE EYES WITH THINE, TRUE WIFE.”
There were steamers plying between Fowey and Falmouth in this summer
weather, and Colonel Disney suggested next morning that Isola should go
with him on his journey in search of Tabitha. They would go by water
and return in the afternoon by rail. The morning was lovely, and the
trip round the coast would be delightful.
“I don’t want to see Tabitha,” Isola answered, with a touch of
impatience. “If you are so bent upon seeing her I had rather you went
alone.”
“But I had rather not spend a whole day away from you. As for Tabitha,
a visit of ten minutes will be quite enough for me. I have brought her
a Rhampoor Chuddah--a warm red one. I have only to make her my little
gift, and to say a few words--without any anger--about her breach of
faith.”
“It was really not a breach of faith. I gave her full permission to go.
I was getting just a little tired of her fussiness. She was not _my_
old servant, you know, Martin. I had not been used to her all my life,
as you have.”
“Ah, but she is so good--such a thoroughly good woman.”
“Yes, she is good, no doubt.”
“Well, we’ll go to Falmouth together, and you can stop at the Green
Bank, where we can lunch, while I go and find Tabitha. You know her
address, I suppose?”
“Yes. She lives at No. 5, Crown Terrace, overlooking the harbour.”
This conversation took place in the garden, where they breakfasted,
under a square striped awning, an apology for a tent, set up on the
lawn by the river. A badly cooked breakfast seemed less offensive in
the garden, where the summer air, and the perfume of the roses eked out
the meal. After breakfast Disney called his wife to the drawing-room,
where he had brought his spoil from the East, and laid his offerings,
as it were, at the feet of his idol.
“See, love, here is a shawl which you can use as a _couvre-pied_,” he
said, flinging a fine cashmere over a chair, “since Fashion decrees
that women shall wear shawls no more. And here are some ivory chessmen
to assist you in puzzling your brains over the game of Eastern
antiquity; and here are vases and things for odd corners. And I have
brought you a carved Persian screen, and some Peshawur curtains for
your door-ways, and a lamp from Cairo, to make your drawing-room a
little more fantastically pretty. I know you love these things.”
She was enraptured with his gifts. Her face lighted up like the face
of a child, and she ran from one object to the other in a confused
gladness, scarcely able to look at one thing at a time.
“They will make the room too lovely,” she cried; “and they will tell
everybody of your far-away travels. I can never thank you half enough
for all these treasures.”
“Love me a little, and that will be more than enough.”
“A little. Ah, Martin, I love you so much.”
“Then why do you sigh as you say it? There need be no sighing over our
love now. I never shall leave you again.”
He caught her to his breast as he spoke, and kissed the pale sweet
face, with a kind of defiant rapture, as if he challenged Fate to do
him any harm. The pain of separation from that fair young wife had been
so keen an agony that there was a touch of savage exultancy in the joy
of re-union--some such fierce gladness as a knight-crusader might have
felt in days of old, coming back to his beloved after years of war and
travel.
God help the crusader’s wife of those rough days if she had turned from
the path of virtue during his exile. There would be a short shrift and
a bloody shroud for such a sinner!
They walked into Fowey by that pathway which Isola had trodden so often
in the year that was gone--not always alone. The pleasure steamer was
waiting in the little haven, where the two rivers part under the cloven
hills. Out seaward the air blew fresh and free, and the spray was
dashing up against the rocks, and Polruan’s grey roofs were wrapped in
morning shadows while Fowey laughed in the sunshine.
That water journey to Falmouth was delicious upon such a morning, and
it needed not a brass band of three men and a boy, blaring out the new
and popular music-hall song of the year before last, to enliven the
voyage. Those arable lands yonder, undulating with every curve of the
ever-varying coast-line, the emerald green of young corn shining in the
sunlight, copse and spinney here and there in the clefts and hollows,
the Gribbin Head standing up stony and grim on the crest of the topmost
hill, and, anon, Par harbour lying low upon the level sands, and then
this point and that, till they meet the gallant fleet of fishing-boats
sailing out from Mevagissey, like a peaceful Armada, and skim past the
haven, and the little town and quay crowded at the foot of the hill,
and the coastguard’s stronghold yonder, high up against the bright blue
sky, whiter than any other mortal habitation ever was or will be. And
so to Falmouth, with porpoises playing under their bows, like sportive
dolphins, as if they carried Dionysius or Arion on their deck--a brief
summer sail, in the keen sweet air of an English summer. To Martin
Disney’s British nostrils that atmosphere seemed soul-inspiring,
the very breath of life and gladness, after the experiences of a
hot-weather campaign.
And here was Falmouth, with proud Pendennis on a sunny height, and
bay and harbour, town and hill, terrace above terrace, tower and
steeple--the town and streets all crowded and clustered in the
foreground, where the river winds inward to the heart of the land.
The Green Bank gave them cordial welcome, and luncheon was speedily
spread in a private sitting-room, at a snug round table by a window
overlooking the harbour--luncheon, and of the best, tongue and chicken,
and salad, cherry pasty, junket and cream.
Colonel Disney applied himself to the meal with a hearty relish.
“There is just this one advantage in bad cooking at home that it makes
one so thoroughly enjoy everything one gets abroad,” he said, laughing
at his own prowess.
“I’ll try and get a better cook, if you like, Martin,” Isola said, with
rather a helpless air.
To a wife of one and twenty there seems such futility in worrying about
a cook.
“You couldn’t possibly get a worse. How long have you put up with this
one?”
“Ever since Tabitha left.”
“Good heavens! You have been starving upon ill-cooked food for six
months. No wonder you look thin and out of health.”
“I am really very well. There is nothing the matter with me.”
“Yes, yes, there is a great deal the matter. A bad cook, solitude, no
one to watch over you and care for you. But that is all over now. You
are eating no lunch--not even that superb cherry pasty. I’ll be off to
find Tabitha. I shan’t be more than half an hour, unless Crown Terrace
is at the extremity of Falmouth. Have you brought a book to read while
I am away? No, foolish child. Never mind. There is the county paper,
and there is the harbour, with all its life, for you to look at.”
He started on his voyage of discovery, with the warm, comfortable
shawl which he had bought for his mother’s old servant hanging over
his arm. It was a small disappointment amidst the infinite delight of
his home-coming, but when he bought the shawl he had fancied himself
putting it round Tabitha’s ample shoulders in the little housekeeper’s
room at the Angler’s Nest, a room that was just large enough to hold a
linen cupboard, a Pembroke table, a comfortable armchair, and Tabitha,
who seemed bigger than all the furniture put together.
He was a man of warm affections, and of that constancy of mind and
temper to which forgetfulness of old ties or indifference to past
associations is impossible. Tabitha’s image was associated with all the
tenderest memories of his youth; with his mother’s widowhood, and with
her second marriage--a foolish marriage. At seven and thirty years of
age she had taken to herself a second husband, some years her junior,
in the person of George Leland, a well-meaning and highly intellectual
curate with weak lungs, a union entered upon while her only son was
a cadet, and which left her four years later again a widow, with
an infant daughter, a child born amidst sickness and sorrow, and
christened at the father’s desire Allegra, as if she had entered a
world of joy. Through that Indian summer of his mother’s second love,
in all the cares and griefs of her second marriage, Tabitha had been
trusty and devoted, nursing the frail husband through that last year
of fading life which was one long illness, comforting the widow, and
rearing the sickly baby until it blossomed into a fine healthy child,
whose strength and beauty took every one by surprise.
With all the joys and sorrows of his mother’s life Tabitha had been
associated for five and thirty years of conscientious service; and
to have lost the good soul now from his fireside was a positive
affliction to Martin Disney. Her loss gave an air of instability to
his domestic life. Who would ever care for his property as Tabitha had
cared--Tabitha who had seen the china and the pictures and drawings
collected piece by piece, who had seen the old family silver drop in
by way of legacy from this and that aunt or uncle, till the safe was
full of treasures, every one of which had its distinct history? What
would a new housekeeper care for General Disney’s coffee-pot, for the
George the Second urn that had belonged to his uncle the Indian judge,
for his grandmother’s decanter stands? A modern servant would scoff at
decanter stands; would wonder they were not melted down. No, rejoiced
as he was to be at home once more, home without Tabitha would be
something less than home to Martin Disney.
He found Crown Terrace, a row of neat little houses high above the
harbour on the Helston road. He had no need to look at the numbers on
the doors. He knew Tabitha’s house at a glance, four or five doors off.
Who else would have devised such pretty window-boxes, so simple and
so artistic; or who else would have hit upon so perfect a harmony of
colour in the flowering plants? Who else, of that lowly status, would
have chosen such curtains or draped them so gracefully? The little
bow-windowed band-box of a house was as pretty as a Parisian toy.
Tabitha was in the window, working with scissors and sponge at one of
the flower-boxes. Never an aphid was allowed to rest on Tabitha’s roses
or geraniums. She gave a little cry of mixed alarm and delight as she
saw that stalwart figure come between her and the sunshine.
“Lor’ sakes, Captain Martin, is it you?” she cried.
“Yes, Tabby, it is I--and I want to know what you’ve got to say to me.
Do you know how a deserter feels when he suddenly finds himself face to
face with his commanding officer? I never had such a knock-down blow as
when I came home the day before yesterday and found you had deserted
your post--you whom I trusted so implicitly.”
Tabitha looked at him dumbly--entreatingly--as if she were mutely
supplicating him not to be angry. She took this reproof with an air of
having thoroughly deserved it, of not having any plea to offer in her
defence.
“You’ll come in and sit down a bit, won’t you, Captain Martin?” she
said deprecatingly; and then, without waiting for an answer, she
bustled out of the parlour, and anon appeared at the open door.
“Yes, of course I am coming in. I have a great deal to say to you--much
more than can be said in the open street.”
Tabitha ushered him into the little parlour; so neat, so cool and
dainty a bower, albeit the whole of its contents would scarcely have
realized ten pounds at an auction. She offered him her most luxurious
easy-chair--a large Madeira chair, with pale chintz cushions and
artistic draping; and then, when he had seated himself, she stood
before him like a prisoner at the bar, and with unmistakable guilt
disturbing the broad placidity of her countenance.
“Tabby, there is my offering from the Indies. May it keep you warm when
you run out upon your mysterious errands on autumn evenings, as you
used to do in my mother’s time. Sit down, pray; I have lots to say to
you.”
Tabitha received the comfortable gift with rapturous thanks. That
Captain Martin should have thought of her, so far away, with his head
full of fighting, and with death looking him in the face! It was too
much, and the tears rolled down her honest cheeks as she thanked him.
“And now, Tabitha, I want a candid answer to a straight question. Why
did you leave my wife last January?”
“That’s easily explained, sir. I’m getting old, and I was tired of
service. Mrs. Disney was very well able to spare me. Perhaps she didn’t
set the same value on me as you did. Young people like young faces
about them.”
“All that I can understand; but it didn’t exonerate you from your duty
to me. You promised me to take care of my young wife.”
“I did my best, Captain Martin, as long as I could give satisfaction,”
faltered Tabitha, growing very pale under this reproof.
“Had you any misunderstanding with Mrs. Disney? Did she find fault with
you?”
“Oh no, sir. Mrs. Disney is not one to find fault. She’s too easy, if
anything. No one could be sweeter than she was to me. God knows, if she
had been my own daughter I could not have loved her better than I did.”
Here Tabitha broke down altogether, and sobbed aloud.
“Come, come, my good soul, don’t distress yourself,” cried Disney,
touched by this emotion. “You loved her; you could not help loving her,
could you? And yet you left her.”
“I was getting tired and old, sir; and I had saved enough money to
furnish a small house; and my sister, Mrs. David, being a widow without
chick or child, wanted me to join her in a lodging-house at the
seaside. She’s a beautiful cook, is my sister, much better than ever I
was. So perhaps I was over-persuaded: and here I am. What’s done cannot
be undone, Captain Martin; but if ever Mrs. Disney should be ill or in
grief or trouble, and she should want me, I’ll go to her without an
hour’s loss of time. I can never forget that she is your wife, and that
she was a kind mistress to me.”
Martin Disney breathed more freely after this speech. He had been
curiously disturbed at the idea of a breach between his wife and the
old and faithful servant.
“Well, Tabby, I’m glad at least you and my wife are not ill friends,”
he said. “I do not care for the loosening of old ties. And now I must
be off. Mrs. Disney is waiting for me at the Green Bank.”
Tabitha seemed a little startled on hearing that her late mistress was
in Falmouth, but she made no remark upon the fact.
“Good-bye, Tabby. Stay, there’s one favour you can do me. Get me a good
cook. The woman we have at present would be a blight upon the happiest
home in Christendom.”
“I’ll find you a better one, sir. I’ll set about hunting for a good one
this afternoon.”
Martin shook hands with her on the door-step, and she stood watching
him till he disappeared at the turn of the road. She watched him with a
countenance full of sorrow.