“UNDER THE PINE-WOOD, BLIND WITH BOUGHS.”
If Isola had any disinclination to visit Captain Hulbert’s yacht,
her headache only served to defer the evil day, for after that
first tea-drinking came other invitations and other arrangements,
fishing-parties, luncheons off Mevagissey, entertainments in which
Isola must needs share when she saw her husband and his sister bent
upon the enjoyment of the hour, delighted with the _Vendetta_ and her
warm-hearted skipper.
They were not John Hulbert’s only friends in the neighbourhood.
Everybody seemed glad to welcome the rover to his native village.
Almost everybody had known him in his boyhood; and there was a general
consensus of opinion that he was a much better fellow than his brother.
He was less courted; but he was better liked. There had been a touch
of cynicism about Lostwithiel which frightened matter-of-fact country
people.
“One could never feel sure he wasn’t laughing in his sleeve at our
rustic ignorance,” said Mrs. Baynham. “I am more at my ease with
Captain Hulbert, and my husband and he were great friends when he was a
boy. They used to go fishing together, when Baynham’s practice wasn’t
as good as it is now.”
So the brief Indian summer passed in pleasant idlesse on a tranquil
sea. The equinoctial gales had not begun to rage yet. There was a lull
before the coming of the great winds which were to blow good ships on
shore, and startle sleepers in the dead of night. All now was fair and
placid--sunlit waters, golden evenings. They spent one bright, balmy
day off Mevagissey, a day which was like a long dream to Isola, as she
sat on deck in a low folding-chair, wrapped in a great feathery rug
from the South Sea Islands, with her languid head reclining against
a plush-covered cushion, one of the many effeminate luxuries which
abounded in the cabins below. Everybody else was intent upon the nets.
Everybody else was full of interest and movement and expectation; but
she sat apart from all, with her ivory knitting-needles lying idle in
her lap, amidst a soft mass of white wool, which her industry was to
convert into a garment for the baby.
Allegra was enraptured with the yacht. She would fain have taken Isola
down to the cabins, to explore their wonders of luxury and contrivance,
so much comfort and elegance in so restricted an area; but Isola
refused to leave the deck.
“I hate all cabins,” she said. “They are always suffocatingly hot.”
So Mrs. Baynham went below with Allegra, and they two explored the two
principal cabins with wondering admiration, and even peeped into the
cook’s galley, and the odd little places where steward and sailors
contrived to bestow themselves.
The chief cabin, saloon, or whatever one liked to call it, was as
daintily decorated as a lady’s boudoir. There were nests of richly
bound books, Oriental bronzes, and all kinds of continental pottery,
Japanese and Indian embroideries, Venetian mirrors, quaint little
carved cupboards for wine or cigars. Every corner and cranny was
utilized.
“What a delicious drawing-room!” cried Allegra. “I could live here
all my life. Fancy, how delightful! A floating life. No such thing as
satiety. One might open one’s eyes every morning on a fresh coast,
glorified, as one sees it across the bright, blue water. To explore the
Mediterranean, for instance, floating from city to city--the cities of
the past, the cities of the Gospel, the shores that were trodden by
the feet of St. Paul and his companions--the cities of the Christian
saints and martyrs, the island birthplaces of Greek gods and heroes.
Think, Mrs. Baynham! A yacht like this is a master-key to open all the
gateways of the world.”
“I would rather have my own cosy little cottage on terra firma,”
answered the doctor’s wife in a matter-of-fact mood; but this speech
of Allegra’s set the good lady pondering upon the possibility of John
Hulbert falling in love with this nice, clever girl, and making her
mistress of his brother’s yacht.
Her friendly fancy depicted the village wedding, and those two going
forth over the great waters to spend their honeymoon amidst the
wonder-world of the Mediterranean, which the banker’s daughter knew
only in her Atlas.
“He can’t be rich,” she thought, “but he must have a comfortable
income. I know his mother had money. And Allegra can earn a good deal
by her painting. She wouldn’t be an expensive wife. We ought all to do
our best to bring it about. A girl has so few chances in such a place
as Trelasco. She might almost as well be in a convent.”
Mrs. Baynham was at heart a matchmaker, like most motherly women
whom fate has left childless. She was very fond of Allegra, who was
so much more companionable than Isola, so much more responsive to
kindness and affection. As she sat on deck in the westering sunlight,
somewhat comatose after a copious luncheon, Mrs. Baynham’s idea of
helping Allegra took the form of a dinner-party which she had long been
meditating, her modest return for numerous dinners which she had eaten
at Glenaveril and at the Angler’s Nest. She considered that three or
four times a year it behoved her to make a serious effort in the way
of hospitality--a substantial and elaborate dinner, in which no good
things in season should be spared, and which should be served with
all due ceremony. The time was at hand when such a dinner would in a
manner fall due; and she determined to hasten the date with a view to
Allegra’s interests.
“Captain Hulbert is sure to be off again before long,” she told
herself, “so every evening they can spend together is of importance.
I’m sure he is inclined to fall in love with her already.”
There was not much doubt about his feelings as he stood by Allegra in
the stern, directing the movements of her bare active hands while she
hauled in the net; not much doubt that he was as deep in love as a
man well can be after a fortnight’s acquaintance. He did not make any
secret of his bondage, but let his eyes tell all the world that this
girl was for him “the world’s one woman.”
The invitation from Mrs. Baynham was delivered by post next morning, as
ceremonious a card as if the place were Mayfair, and the inviter and
invitees had not met since last season. A copper-plate card, with name
and address filled in by the lady’s pen, a detail which distinguished
her modest invitation from the Glenaveril cards, of which there were
a variety, for at homes, tennis, dinner, luncheon, to accept, and to
decline. A fortnight’s notice marked the dignity of the occasion--the
hour the orthodox quarter to eight.
“We can’t refuse, Isola,” said Disney, when his wife handed him the
card, “although my past experience assures me that the evening will
be a trifle heavy. Why will people in small houses insist upon giving
dinner-parties, instead of having their friends in instalments? When we
go to dine with the Baynhams we go for love of them, not the people
they bring together; and yet they insist upon seating twelve in a room
that will just comfortably hold eight. It is all vanity and vexation of
spirit.”
“But Mrs. Baynham is so happy when she is giving a real dinner-party. I
don’t think we can refuse, can we, Allegra?” asked Isola.
“Mrs. Baynham is a darling, and I wouldn’t vex her for worlds,” replied
her sister-in law. “And in a place like this one can’t pretend a prior
engagement, unless it were in the moon.”
The invitation was accepted forthwith, and when Captain Hulbert dropped
in at teatime it was discovered that he, too, had been asked, and that
he meant to accept, if his friends at the Angler’s Nest were to be
there.
* * * * *
A thunderbolt fell upon the little village on the following Sunday.
When the old men and women, creeping to church a little in advance
of younger legs, came to the church-path, they found the gate locked
against them, locked and barricaded with bars which looked as if they
were meant to last till the final cataclysm. The poor old creatures
looked up wonderingly at a newly-painted board, on which the more
intelligent among them spelt out the following legend--
“This wood is the private property of J. Vansittart Crowther, Esq.
Trespassers will be prosecuted.”
Martin Disney and his wife and sister came up when a little crowd of
men, women, and children, numbering about thirty, had assembled round
the gate, all in their Sunday best.
“What’s the meaning of this?” asked Disney.
“Ah, colonel, that’s what we all want to know,” replied old Manley, the
village carpenter, a bent and venerable figure, long past work. “I’m
over eighty, but I never remember that gate being locked as long as I
have lived at Trelasco, and that’s all my life, colonel. There’s always
been a right of way through that wood.”
“And there always shall be,” answered Martin Disney. “We won’t take any
violent measures to-day, my friends--first because it is Sunday, and
next because one should always try fair means before one tries foul.
I shall write to Mr. Crowther to-morrow, asking him civilly to open
that gate. If he refuses, I’ll have it opened for him, and I’ll take
the consequences of the act. Now, my good friends, you’d better go to
church by the road. You’ll get there after the service has begun. Wait
till the congregation are standing up, and then go into church all
together, so that everybody may understand why and by whose fault it is
that you are late.”
The appearance of this large contingent after the first lesson created
considerable surprise, and much turning of heads and rustling of
bonnet-strings in the echoing old stone church. Mr. Crowther stood in
his pew of state on one side of the chancel, and felt that the war had
begun. Everybody was against him in the matter, he knew; but he wanted
to demonstrate the rich man’s right to do what he liked with the things
which he had bought. The wood was his, and he did not mean to let the
whole parish tramp across it.
He received a stiffly polite letter from Colonel Disney, requesting him
to re-open the church-path without loss of time, and informing him of
the great inconvenience caused to the older and weaker members of the
congregation by the illegal closing of the path during church hours.
Mr. Crowther sent his reply by the colonel’s messenger. He asserted
his right to shut up the wood which formed a part of his estate, and
positively refused to re-open the gate at either end of the footpath in
question.
Captain Hulbert dropped in at his usual hour, eager to know the
progress of the fight. Fight there must be, he was assured, having seen
something of Mr. Crowther’s bulldog temper. Then, in the drawing-room
of the Angler’s Nest, there was hatched a terrible plot--a Catiline
conspiracy in a tea-cup--Allegra listening and applauding while the two
men plotted.
That night, when the village was hushed in sleep, a boatful of sailors
landed at the little hard near the railway station at Fowey, and half
a dozen stalwart blue-jackets might have been seen tramping along
the old railway track to Trelasco, one carrying a crowbar, another
a carpenter’s basket. And under the autumn stars that night in the
woods of Glenaveril, while Vansittart Crowther slept the sleep of the
just man who payeth his twenty shillings in the pound, there rose
the sound of a sea-song and the cheery chorus of the sailors, with a
rhythmic accompaniment of hammering; and lo, when the October morning
visited those yellowing woods, and when Mr. Crowther’s gamekeeper went
on his morning round, the gate at either end of the church path was
wrenched off its hinges, and was lying on the ground. Staple and bolt,
padlock and iron hinges, were lying among the dewy dock-leaves and
the yellowing fern; and there was free passage between the village of
Trelasco and the House of God.
Vansittart Crowther went to Plymouth by the first train that could
convey him, and there consulted the lawyer most in renown among the
citizens; and that gentleman, after due thought and consideration,
informed him that the closing of such an old-established right of way
as that of the church-path was more than any landowner durst attempt.
Whatever omission there might be in the title-deeds, he had bought the
estate subject to that old right of way, which had been enjoyed by the
parish from time immemorial. He could no more shut it off than he could
wall out the sky.
“But I can punish the person who pulled the locks off my gates, I
conclude?” said Mr. Crowther, swelling with indignation.
“That, of course, is a distinct outrage, for which you may obtain
redress, if you can find out who did it.”
“There can be no difficulty about that. The act must have been
instigated by the writer of that impertinent letter.”
He pointed to Martin Disney’s letter, lying open on the solicitor’s
table.
“Very probably. But you will have to be sure of proving his share in
the act if you mean to take proceedings against him.”
Vansittart Crowther was furious. How was he to bring the responsibility
of this outrage home to anybody, when the deed had been done in the
dead of night, and no mortal eye had seen the depredators at their
felonious work? His locks and bolts and hinges, the best of their kind
that Sheffield could supply, had been mocked at and made as naught; and
all his dumb dogs of serving men and women had been lying in their too
comfortable beds, and had heard never a sound of hammer clinking or
crowbar striking on iron. There had not been so much as a kitchen-maid
afflicted with the tooth-ache, and lying wakeful, to hear the far-off
noise of that villainous deed.
Mr. Crowther sent for the police authorities of Fowey, and set his
wrongs before them.
“I will give fifty pounds reward to the man who will get me credible
evidence as to the person who planned that outrage,” he said. And next
day there were bills pasted against divers doors at Fowey and Trelasco,
against the Mechanics’ Institute, and against that curious old oaken
door of a mediæval building opposite the club, which may once have
been a donjon, and in sundry other conspicuous places, beginning with
“Whereas,” and ending with Vansittart Crowther’s signature.
Nothing came of this splendid offer, though there were plenty of
people in the district to whom fifty pounds would have seemed a
fortune. Whether no one had seen the crew of the _Vendetta_ landing
or re-embarking in the night-time, or whether some wakeful eyes had
seen, whose owners would not betray the doers of a deed done in a good
cause, still remains unknown. Captain Hulbert was enchanted at the
success of the conspiracy, and went to church next Sunday by the now
notorious footpath, along which an unusual procession of villagers came
streaming in the crisp, clear air, proud to assert a right that had
been so boldly maintained by their unnamed but not unknown champion.
Every one felt very sure that the flinging open of the gates had been
somehow brought about by Martin Disney--Martin, whose grandfather they
could some of them remember, when he came home after the long war with
the French, and took up his abode in an old house among the hills, and
married a fair young wife. That had happened sixty-five years ago;
but there were those in the village who could remember handsome Major
Disney, with only one arm, and a face bronzed by the sun that shines on
the banks of the Douro.
Captain Hulbert went by the church-path that morning, although it took
him ever so far out of his way. He wanted to walk to church with the
Disney family, in order to talk over their victory; and the Disneys
seemed to-day to resolve themselves into one; and that one was Allegra
Leland; for she and the captain walked ahead and discoursed gaily,
perhaps in too exultant and worldly a vein for pious church people;
but at worst their exultation was in a good cause; for the horn of the
lowly was exalted, and the pride of the rich man was brought low.
“Do you think he will be at church?” asked Allegra, the pronoun
standing for Mr. Crowther.
“Of course he will. He must brazen out the position. He will be there,
no doubt, gnashing his teeth behind his prayer-book. If angry looks
could kill, you and I would be as dead as Ananias and Sapphira before
the end of the service.”
“Poor, silly man, why did he want to shut up the footpath?” speculated
Allegra.
“Only to show his importance--to make himself felt in the
neighbourhood. They wouldn’t have him for their representative, in
spite of his money, and his grand Church and State principles, and all
the Primrose Leaguing of his womankind; and so he turns savage and
wants to make himself disagreeable.”
Yes, it was true that Mr. Crowther had stood for Lostwithiel on three
separate occasions, and with equal unsuccess on each. This may have
embittered him. If the anger of slighted beauty is a furious thing, no
less bitter is the sting of wounded vanity in the rejected candidate.
And then the parson and the doctor had told Mr. Crowther that he could
not close his wood against the public; an all-sufficient reason why he
should make the attempt.
The Crowther family were in the chancel pew in full force. Allegra
thought she detected signs of distress in Mrs. Crowther’s countenance;
but the daughters went through the service with their noses in the air,
and were more than usually vivacious and conversational among their
friends between the church-porch and the landau which bore them away to
Glenaveril, and the sumptuous boredom of Sunday luncheon.
Merrily went the short autumn days on board the _Vendetta_, and merrily
went the tea-drinkings and talk in the drawing-room at the Angler’s
Nest. Mrs. Disney did not often join the yachting expeditions east or
west. The sea made her head ache, she told them; but Mrs. Baynham, who
loved pleasure of any kind, was always ready to chaperon Allegra, and
Isola welcomed the wanderers to the cheery fireside and the friendly
five-o’clock tea. She spent her own days mostly in the society of her
baby, with whom she seemed to hold a kind of mysterious commune. She
had no idea of amusing him as the nurse had, none of those conventional
tricks and movements which are offered to generation after generation
of infants; but the child would lie in her lap for hours while she sang
to him in her low sweet voice the songs she had learnt in her early
girlhood--songs that the peasants of Brittany sing, some of them--and
others of a somewhat loftier strain. She would sing him little bits
of Mozart, those immortal melodies, of inexhaustible sweetness and
ineffable pathos, music mixed with smiles and tears, melody interwoven
with such melting tenderness as thrills the coldest heart. There was a
gentle happiness in these solitary hours which the young mother spent
with her child; and Martin Disney, coming into the room unawares,
sometimes stood for a minute or so in loving contemplation of that
domestic picture--the young fair face with its long oval form and
delicate features; the pensive gravity of the large violet eyes, and
mournful droop of the thin, flower-like lips. He had seen such a face
on canvas, the ideal Madonna of Raffaelle, with just that subdued
blonde colouring and pale auburn hair, and just that thoughtful
expression.
His heart swelled with gladness and gratitude as he contemplated mother
and son. Yes, the child had made all things well in his home.
Those aching doubts which he felt as he watched beside his wife’s
sick-bed had vanished like clouds before the sun. Who could doubt the
happiness of the mother, absorbed in her firstborn? Who could doubt the
love of the wife, looking up at her husband with such tender welcome
as he bent over her shoulder to take the little curled-up fist in his,
unfold the crumpled fingers, and press them to his lips?
“You are very fond of him, Martin?” she asked, with an often repeated
inquiry, knowing what the answer would be.
“Fond of him! After you he is all that I have in this world--except
Allegra, who will float away into a world of her own by-and-by, and
belong to us no more.”
“After me! He ought to be first, Martin--your son, your heir, your
second self in the days to come. He ought to have the first place in
your heart, Martin, for he is your future.”
“No one is first but you.”
He dropped the baby hand, and took his wife’s head between his hands,
and lifted the fair young forehead, looking down at it fondly before he
stooped to kiss the soft clustering hair and pencilled brows and ivory
temples, with more than a lover’s passion.