SOME OLD SONGS.
"Are you dreaming again, child?" said Mrs. Rosewarne to her daughter.
"You are not a fit companion for a sick woman, who is herself dull
enough. Why do you always look so sad when you look at the sea, Wenna?"
The wan-faced, beautiful-eyed woman lay on a sofa, a book beside her.
She had been chatting in a bright, rapid, desultory fashion about the
book and a dozen other things--amusing herself really by a continual
stream of playful talk--until she perceived that the girl's fancies were
far away. Then she stopped suddenly, with this expression of petulant
but good-natured disappointment.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, mother," said Wenna, who was seated at an open
window fronting the bay. "What did you say? Why does the sea make one
sad? I don't know. One feels less at home here than out on the rocks at
Eglosilyan: perhaps that is it. Or the place is so beautiful that it
almost makes you cry. I don't know."
And indeed Penzance Bay on this still, clear morning was beautiful
enough to attract wistful eyes and call up vague and distant fancies.
The cloudless sky was intensely dark in its blue: one had a notion that
the unseen sun was overhead and shining vertically down. The still plain
of water--so clear that the shingle could be seen through it a long way
out--had no decisive color, but the fishing smacks lying out there were
jet-black points in the bewildering glare. The sunlight did not seem to
be in the sky, in the air or on the sea; but when you turned to the
southern arm of the bay, where the low line of green hills ran out into
the water, there you could see the strong clear light shining--shining
on the green fields and on the sharp black lines of hedges, on that bit
of gray old town with its cottage-gardens and its sea-wall, and on the
line of dark rock that formed the point of the promontory. On the other
side of the bay the eye followed the curve of the level shores until it
caught sight of St. Michael's Mount rising palely from the water, its
sunlit grays and purple shadows softened by the cool distance. Then
beyond that again, on the verge of the far horizon, lay the long and
narrow line of the Lizard, half lost in a silver haze. For the rest, a
cool wind went this way and that through Mrs. Rosewarne's room, stirring
the curtains. There was an odor of the sea in the air. It was a day for
dreaming perhaps, but not for the gloom begotten of languor and an
indolent pulse.
"Oh, mother! oh, mother!" Wenna cried suddenly, with a quick flush of
color to her cheeks, "do you know who is coming along? Can you see? It
is Mr. Trelyon, and he is looking at all the houses: I know he is
looking for us."
"Child! child!" said the mother. "How should Mr. Trelyon know we are
here?"
"Because I told him," Wenna said simply and hurriedly. "Mother, may I
wave a handkerchief to him? Won't you come and see him? he seems so much
more manly in this strange place; and how brave and handsome he looks!"
"Wenna!" her mother said severely.
The girl did not wave a handkerchief, it is true, but she knelt down at
the open bay-window, so that he must needs see her; and sure enough he
did. Off went his hat in a minute, a bright look of recognition leapt to
his eyes, and he crossed the street.
Then Wenna turned, all in a flutter of delight, and quite unconscious of
the color in her face: "Are you vexed, mother? Mayn't I be glad to see
him? Why, when I know that he will brighten up your spirits better than
a dozen doctors? One feels quite happy and hopeful whenever he comes
into the room. Mother, you won't have to complain of dullness if Mr.
Trelyon comes to see you. And why doesn't the girl send him up at once?"
Wenna was standing at the open door to receive him when he came up
stairs: she had wholly forgotten the embarrassment of their last
parting.
"I thought I should find you out," he said when he came into the room,
and it was clear that there was little embarrassment about him; "and I
know how your mother likes to be teased and worried. You've got a nice
place here, Mrs. Rosewarne; and what splendid weather you've brought
with you!"
"Yes," said Wenna, her whole face lit up with a shy gladness, "haven't
we? And did you ever see the bay looking more beautiful? It is enough to
make you laugh and clap your hands out of mere delight to see everything
so lovely and fresh."
"A few minutes ago I thought you were nearly crying over it," said the
mother with a smile, but Miss Wenna took no heed of the reproof. She
would have Mr. Trelyon help himself to a tumbler of claret and water.
She fetched out from some mysterious lodging-house recess an ornamented
tin can of biscuits. She accused herself of being the dullest companion
in the world, and indirectly hinted that he might have pity on her mamma
and stay to luncheon with them.
"Well, it's very odd," he said, telling a lie with great simplicity of
purpose, "but I had arranged to drive to the Land's End for luncheon--to
the inn there, you know. I suppose it wouldn't--Do you think, Mrs.
Rosewarne--would it be convenient for you to come for a drive so far?"
"Oh, it would be the very best thing in the world for her--nothing could
be better," said Wenna; and then she added meekly, "if it is not giving
you too much trouble, Mr. Trelyon."
He laughed: "Trouble! I'm glad to be of use to anybody; and in this case
I shall have all the pleasure on my side. Well, I'm off now to see about
the horses. If I come for you in half an hour, will that do?"
As soon as he had left Mrs. Rosewarne turned to her daughter and said to
her, gravely enough, "Wenna, one has seldom to talk to you about the
proprieties, but really this seems just a little doubtful. Mr. Trelyon
may make a friend of you--that is all very well, for you are going to
marry a friend of his--but you ought not to expect him to associate with
me."
"Mother," said Wenna with hot cheeks, "I wonder how you can suspect him
of thinking of such foolish and wicked things. Why, he is the very last
man in all the world to do anything that is mean and unkind, or to think
about it."
"My dear child, I suspect him of nothing," Mrs. Rosewarne said; "but
look at the simple facts of the case. Mr. Trelyon is a very rich
gentleman; his family is an old one, greatly honored about here; and if
he is so recklessly kind as to offer his acquaintanceship to persons who
are altogether in a different sphere of life, we should take care not to
abuse his kindness or to let people have occasion to wonder at him.
Looking at your marriage and future station, it is perhaps more
permissible with you; but as regards myself, I don't very much care,
Wenna, to have Mr. Trelyon coming about the house."
"Why, mother, I--I am surprised at you!" Wenna said warmly. "You judge
of him by the contemptible things that other people might say of him. Do
you think he would care for that? Mr. Trelyon is a man, and like a man
he has the courage to choose such friends as he likes; and it is no more
to him what money they have or what their position is than the--than the
shape of their pocket-handkerchiefs is. Perhaps that is his folly,
recklessness--the recklessness of a young man. Perhaps it is. I am not
old enough to know how people alter, but I hope I shall never see Mr.
Trelyon alter in this respect--never, if he were to live for a hundred
years. And--and I am surprised to hear you, of all people, mother,
suggest such things of him. What has he done that you should think so
meanly of him?"
Wenna was very indignant and hurt. She would have continued further, but
that a tremulous movement of her under lip caused her to turn away her
head.
"Well, Wenna, you needn't cry about it," her mother said gently. "It is
of no great consequence. Of course every one must please himself in
choosing his friends; and I quite admit that Mr. Trelyon is not likely
to be hindered by anything that any person may say. Don't take it so
much to heart, child: go and get on your things, and get back some of
the cheerfulness you had while he was here. I will say this for the
young man, that he has an extraordinary power of raising your spirits."
"You are a good mother, after all," said Wenna penitently; "and if you
come and let me dress you prettily, I shall promise not to scold you
again--not till the next time you deserve it."
By the time they drove away from Penzance the forenoon had softened into
more beautiful colors. There was a paler blue in the sky and on the sea,
and millions of yellow stars twinkled on the ripples. A faint haze had
fallen over the bright green hills lying on the south of the bay.
"Life looks worth having on such a day as this," Trelyon said: "doesn't
it, Miss Wenna?"
She certainly seemed pleased enough. She drank in the sweet fresh air;
she called attention to the pure rare colors of the sea and the green
uplands, the coolness of the woods through which they drove, the profuse
abundance of wild flowers along the banks; all things around her seemed
to have conspired to yield her delight, and a great happiness shone in
her eyes. Mr. Trelyon talked mostly to Mrs. Rosewarne, but his eyes
rarely wandered away for long from Wenna's pleased and radiant face; and
again and again he said to himself, "And if a simple drive on a spring
morning can give this child so great a delight, it is not the last that
she and I shall have together."
"Mrs. Rosewarne," said he, "I think your daughter has as much need of a
holiday as anybody. I don't believe there's a woman or girl in the
county works as hard as she does."
"I don't know whether she needs it," said Miss Wenna of herself, "but I
know that she enjoys it."
"I know what you'd enjoy a good deal better than merely getting out of
sight of your own door for a week or two," said he. "Wouldn't you like
to get clear away from England for six months, and go wandering about in
all sorts of fine places? Why, I could take such a trip in that time! I
should like to see what you'd say to some of the old Dutch towns and
their churches, and all that; then Cologne, you know, and a sail up the
Rhine to Mainz; then you'd go on to Bâle and Geneva, and we'd get you a
fine big carriage, with the horses decorated with foxes' and pheasants'
tails, to drive you to Chamounix. Then, when you had gone tremulously
over the Mer de Glace, and kept your wits about you going down the
Mauvais Pas, I don't think you could do better than go on to the Italian
lakes--you never saw anything like them, I'll be bound--and Naples and
Florence. Would you come back by the Tyrol, and have a turn at Zurich
and Lucerne, with a long ramble through the Black Forest in a trap
resembling a ramshackle landau?"
"Thank you," said Wenna very cheerfully. "The sketch is delightful, but
I am pretty comfortable where I am."
"But this can't last," said he.
"And neither can my holidays," she answered.
"Oh, but they ought to," he retorted vehemently. "You have not half
enough amusement in your life: that's my opinion. You slave too much for
all those folks about Eglosilyan and their dozens of children. Why, you
don't get anything out of life as you ought to. What have you to look
forward to? Only the same ceaseless round of working for other people.
Don't you think you might let some one else have a turn at that useful
but monotonous occupation?"
"But Wenna has something else to look forward to now," her mother
reminded him gently; and after that he did not speak for some while.
Fair and blue was the sea that shone all around the land when they got
out on the rough moorland near the coast. They drove to the solitary
little inn perched over the steep cliffs, and here the horses were put
up and luncheon ordered. Would Mrs. Rosewarne venture down to the great
rocks at the promontory? No, she would rather stay indoors till the
young people returned; and so these two went along the grassy path
themselves.
They clambered down the slopes, and went out among the huge blocks of
weather-worn granite, many of which were brilliant with gray, green and
orange lichens. There was a low and thunderous noise in the air: far
below them, calm and fine as the day was, the summer sea dashed and
roared into gigantic caverns, while the white foam floated out again on
the troubled waves. Could anything have been more magical than the
colors of the sea--its luminous greens, its rich purples, its brilliant
blues, lying in long swaths on the apparently motionless surface? It was
only the seething white beneath their feet and the hoarse thunder along
the coast that told of the force of this summer-like sea; and for the
rest the picture was light and calm and beautiful; but there the black
rocks basked in the sunlight, the big skarts standing here and there on
their ledges, not moving a feather. A small steamer was slowly making
for the island farther out, where a lighthouse stood. And far away
beyond these, on the remote horizon, the Scilly Isles lay like a low
bank of yellow fog under the pale-blue skies.
They were very much by themselves out here at the end of the world, and
yet they did not seem inclined to talk much. Wenna sat down on the warm
grass; her companion perched himself on one of the blocks of granite;
they watched the great undulations of the blue water come rolling on to
the black rocks and then fall backward seething in foam.
"And what are you thinking about?" said Trelyon to her gently, so that
she should not be startled.
"Of nothing at all: I am quite happy," Wenna said frankly. Then she
added, "I suppose the worst of a day like this is that a long time after
you look back upon it, and it seems so beautiful and far away that it
makes you miserable. You think how happy you were once. That is the
unfortunate side of being happy."
"Well," said he, "I must say you don't look forward to the future with
any great hope if you think the recollection of one bright day will make
you wretched."
He came down from his perch and stood beside her. "Why, Wenna," said he,
"do you know what you really need? Some one to take you in hand
thoroughly, and give you such an abundance of cheerful and pleasant days
that you would never think of singling out any one of them. Why
shouldn't you have weeks and months of happy idling in bright weather,
such as lots of people have who don't deserve them a bit? There's
something wrong in your position. You want some one to become your
master and compel you to make yourself happy. You won't of yourself
study your own comfort: some one else ought to make you."
"And who do you think would care to take so much trouble about me?" she
said with a smile, for she attached no serious meaning to this random
talk.
Her companion's face flushed somewhat--not with embarrassment, but with
the courage of what he was going to say. "I would," he said boldly. "You
will say it is none of my business, but I tell you I would give twenty
thousand pounds to-morrow if I were allowed to--to get you a whole
summer of pleasant holidays."
There was something about the plain-spoken honesty of this avowal that
touched her keenly. Wild and impossible as the suggestion was, it told
her at least what one person in the world thought of her. She said to
him, with her eyes cast down, "I like to hear you speak like that--not
for my own sake, but I know there is nothing generous and kindly that
you wouldn't do at a mere moment's impulse. But I hope you don't think I
have been grumbling over my lot on such a day as this? Oh no: I see too
much of other people's way of living to complain of my own. I have every
reason to be contented and happy."
"Yes, you're a deal too contented and happy," said he with an impatient
shrug. "You want somebody to alter all that, and see that you get more
to be contented and happy about."
She rose: he gave her his hand to help her up. But he did not surrender
her hand then, for the path up the slope was a deep and difficult one,
and she could fairly rely on his strength and sureness of foot.
"But you are not content, Mr. Trelyon," she said. "I always notice that
whenever you get to a dangerous place you are never satisfied unless you
are putting your life in peril. Wouldn't you like to ride your black
horse down the face of this precipice? or wouldn't you like to clamber
down blindfold? Why does a man generally seem to be anxious to get rid
of his life?"
"Perhaps it ain't of much use to him," he said coolly.
"You ought not to say that," she answered in a low voice.
"Well," he said, "I don't mean to break my neck yet a while; but if I
did, who would miss me? I suppose my mother would play half a dozen a
day more operas or oratorios, or stuff of that sort, and there would be
twenty parsons in the house for one there is at present. And some of the
brats about the place would miss an occasional sixpence; which would be
better for their health. And Dick--I suppose they'd sell him to some
fool of a Londoner, who would pound his knees out in the Park--he would
miss me too."
"And these are all," she said, "who would miss you? You are kind to your
friends."
"Why, would you?" he said with a stare of surprise; and then, seeing she
would not speak, he continued with a laugh, "I like the notion of my
making an object of general compassion of myself. Did the poor dear
tumble off a rock into the sea? And where was its mother's apron-string?
I'm not going to break my neck yet a while, Miss Wenna; so don't you
think I'm going to let you off your promise to pay me back for those
sewing-machines."
"I have told you, Mr. Trelyon," she said with some dignity, "that we
shall pay you back every farthing of the price of them."
He began to whistle in an impertinent manner. He clearly placed no great
faith in the financial prospects of that sewing club.
They had some light luncheon in the remote little inn, and Mrs.
Rosewarne was pleased to see her ordinarily demure and preoccupied
daughter in such high and careless spirits. It was not a splendid
banquet. The chamber was not a gorgeous one, for the absence of ornament
and the enormous thickness of the walls told of the house being shut up
in the winter months and abandoned to the fury of the western gales,
when the wild sea came hurling up the face of these steep cliffs and
blowing over the land. But they paid little attention to any lack of
luxury. There was a beautiful blue sea shining in the distance. The
sunlight was falling hotly on the green sward of the rocks outside, but
all the same a fresh, cool breeze came blowing in at the open window.
They let the time pass easily, with pleasant talk and laughter.
Then they drove leisurely back in the afternoon. They passed along the
moorland ways, through rude little villages built of stone and by the
outskirts of level and cheerless farms, until they got into the
beautiful woods and avenues lying around Penzance. When they came in
sight of the broad bay they found that the world had changed its colors
since the morning. The sea was of a cold purplish gray, but all around
it, on the eastern horizon, there was a band of pale pink in the sky. On
the west again, behind Penzance, the warm hues of the sunset were
shining behind the black stems of the trees. The broad thoroughfare was
mostly in shadow, and the sea was so still that one could hear the
footsteps and the voices of the people walking up and down the Parade.
"I suppose I must go now," said the young gentleman when he had seen
them safely seated in the small parlor overlooking the bay. But he did
not seem anxious to go.
"But why?" Wenna said, rather timidly. "You have no engagement, Mr.
Trelyon. Would you care to stay and have dinner with us--such a dinner
as we can give you?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I should like it very much," he said.
Mrs. Rosewarne, a little surprised, and yet glad to see Wenna enjoying
herself, regarded the whole affair with a gentle resignation. Wenna had
the gas lit and the blinds let down: then, as the evening was rather
cool, she had soon a bright fire burning in the grate. She helped to lay
the table. She produced such wines as they had. She made sundry visits
to the kitchen, and at length the banquet was ready.
What ailed the young man? He seemed beside himself with careless and
audacious mirth, and he made Mrs. Rosewarne laugh as she had not laughed
for years. It was in vain that Wenna assumed airs to rebuke his
rudeness. Nothing was sacred from his impertinence--not even the
offended majesty of her face. And at last she gave in too, and could
only revenge herself by saying things of him which, the more severe they
were, the more he seemed to enjoy. But after dinner she went to the
small piano, while her mother took a big easy-chair near the fire, and
he sat by the table, looking over some books. There was no more reckless
laughter then.
In ancient times--that is to say, in the half-forgotten days of our
youth--a species of song existed which exists no more. It was not as the
mournful ballads of these days, which seem to record the gloomy
utterances of a strange young woman who has wandered into the magic
scene in _Der Freischütz_, and who mixes up the moanings of her passion
with descriptions of the sights, and sounds she there finds around her.
It was of quite another stamp. It dealt with a phraseology of sentiment
peculiar to itself--a "patter," as it were, which came to be universally
recognized in drawing-rooms. It spoke of maidens plighting their troth,
of Phyllis enchanting her lover with her varied moods, of marble halls
in which true love still remained the same. It apostrophized the shells
of ocean; it tenderly described the three great crises of a particular
heroine's life by mentioning her head-dress; it told of how the lover of
Pretty Jane would have her meet him in the evening. Well, all the world
was content to accept this conventional phraseology, and behind the
paraphernalia of "enchanted moon-beams" and "fondest glances" and
"adoring sighs" perceived and loved the sentiment that could find no
simpler utterance. Some of us, hearing the half-forgotten songs again,
suddenly forget the odd language, and the old pathos springs up again,
as fresh as in the days when our first love had just come home from her
boarding-school; while others, who have no old-standing acquaintance
with these memorable songs, have somehow got attracted to them by the
mere quaintness of their speech and the simplicity of their airs. Master
Harry Trelyon was no great critic of music. When Wenna Rosewarne sang
that night "She wore a wreath of roses," he fancied he had never
listened to anything so pathetic. When she sang "Meet me by moonlight
alone," he was delighted with the spirit and half-humorous, half-tender
grace of the composition. As she sang "When other lips and other
hearts," it seemed to him that there were no songs like the
old-fashioned songs, and that the people who wrote those ballads were
more frank and simple and touching in their speech than writers
now-a-days. Somehow, he began to think of the drawing-rooms of a former
generation, and of the pictures of herself his grandmother had drawn for
him many a time. Had she a high waist to that white silk dress in which
she ran away to Gretna? and did she have ostrich feathers on her head?
Anyhow, he entirely believed what she had told him of the men of that
generation. They were capable of doing daring things for the sake of a
sweetheart. Of course his grandfather had done boldly and well in
whirling the girl off to the Scottish borders, for who could tell what
might have befallen her among ill-natured relatives and persecuted
suitors?
Wenna Rosewarne was singing "We met, 'twas in a crowd, and I thought he
would shun me." It is the song of a girl (must one explain so much in
these later days?) who is in love with one man, and is induced to marry
another: she meets the former, and her heart is filled with shame and
anguish and remorse. As Wenna sang the song it seemed to this young man
that there was an unusual pathos in her voice; and he was so carried
away by the earnestness of her singing that his heart swelled and rose
up within him, and he felt himself ready to declare that such should not
be her fate. This man who was coming back to marry her--was there no one
ready to meet him and challenge his atrocious claim? Then the song
ended, and with a sudden disappointment Trelyon recollected that he at
least had no business to interfere. What right had he to think of saving
her?
He had been idly turning over some volumes on the table. At last he came
to a Prayer-book of considerable size and elegance of binding.
Carelessly looking at the fly-leaf, he saw that it was a present to
Wenna Rosewarne, "with the very dearest love of her sister Mabyn." He
passed his hand over the leaves, not noticing what he was doing.
Suddenly he saw something which did effectually startle him into
attention.
It was a sheet of paper with two slits cut into it at top and bottom. In
these a carefully-pressed piece of None-so-pretty had been placed, and
just underneath the flower was written in pencil, "From H.T. to W.R.,
May 2, 18--." He shut the book quickly, as if his fingers had been
burned, and then he sat quite silent, with his heart beating fast.
So she had kept the flower he had put in the basket of primroses! It had
carried its message, and she still remained his friend!