wance; I did tell her so when us walked not two hour agone. Now I sees
differ'nt. She'm none o' mine. She'm no Tregenza. Be Nature, as made us
God-fearin' to a man, to a wummon, to a cheel, gwaine to lie after
generations 'pon generations? Look back at them as bred me, an' them as
bred them--back, an' back, an' back. All Tregenzas was o' the Lard's
harvest; an' should I, as feared God more'n any o' 'em, an' fought for the
Lard of Hosts 'fore I was higher'n this table--should I--Michael Tregenza,
breed a damned sawl? The thot's comed black an' terrible 'pon my mind 'fore
to-day; an' I've put en away from me, judgin' 'twas the devil. Now I knaw
'twas God spoke; now I knaw that her's none o' my gettin'. 'Who honoreth
his faither shall 'a' joy o' his awn childern.' Shall I, as weer a pattern
son, be cussed wi' a strumpet for a darter?"
"You'm speakin' a hard thing o' dead bones, then. The Chirgwins is upland
folks o' long standin', knawn so far as the Land's End, an' up Drift an'
down Lizard likewise."
"She've lied to me," was his answer; "she've lied oftentimes; she'm false
to whatever I did teach her; she've sawld herself--she've--no more on
it--no more on it but awnly this: I call 'pon God A'mighty to bear witness
she'm no Tregenza--never--never."
"'Tweer her mother in the gal; but doan't 'e say more 'bout that, Michael.
Poor dear sawl, she'm dead an' gone, an' she loved 'e wi' all her 'eart, as
I, what knawed her, can testify to."
"No more o' that," he said, "the gal's comin'. Thank God she ban't no cheel
o' mine--thank God, as 'ave tawld me 'tedn' so. He whispered it, an' I put
it away an' away. Now I knaws. You bide here, Thomasin Tregenza, and I'll
speak what's fittin'."
Thus in one moment this hideous conviction was stamped upon the man's soul
for life. He judged the dead mother by the daughter and visited the child's
sin upon the parent's memory. Any conclusion more monstrous, more directly
opposed to every natural instinct, can hardly be conceived, but the man had
been strangling natural instincts for fifty years. Only pride of family
remained. There were but few Tregenzas left and soon there would be none
unless Tom carried on the name. Michael was the quintessence of the
Tregenza spirit, the fruit of generations, the high-water mark. He stood on
that giddy pinnacle which has religious mania for its precipice. To damn a
dead woman was easier than to accept a wanton daughter. Better an
unfaithful wife than that any soul born of Tregenza blood should be lost.
So he washed his hands of both, thanking God, who had launched the truth
into his mind at last; and then he rose to his feet as Joan entered the
room.
She stood for a moment in the doorway with her blue eyes fixed in amazement
upon the kitchen table. Then she grew very red to the roots of her hair and
came forward. There was almost a joy in her mind that the long story of
falsehood must end at last. She did not fear her father now and looked up
into his face quite calmly as she approached the table.
"These be mine," she said. "Was it you, faither, as took 'em from wheer
they was?"
"'Twas me, Joan," answered Mrs. Tregenza; "an' I judge the Lard led me."
The girl stood erect and scornful.
"I'm glad you found them; now I can tell the truth."
"Truth!" thundered Michael. "Truth--what do you knaw 'bout Truth, darter o'
Baal? Your life's a lie, your tongue's rotten in your mouth wi' lyin'.
Never look in no honest faace agin!"
"You'd do best to bide still while I tell 'e what this here means," said
Joan quietly. The man's anger alarmed her no more than the squeak of a
caged rat. "I ban't no darter o' Baal, an' the money's come by honest. I've
lied afore, but never shall again. An' I've let Joe go 'is ways thinkin' I
loved en, which I doan't. I be tokened to a furriner from London, an' he's
took me for his awn, an' he be gwaine to come down-long mighty soon an'
take me away. But I couldn't tell 'e nothin' of that 'cause he bid me keep
my mouth shut. So theer."
"'Took 'e for 'is awn'! Wheer is he, then? Why be you here?"
"He'm comin', I tell 'e. He'm a true man, an' he shawed me what 'tis to
love."
"Bought you, you damned harlot!"
She knew the word was vile, but a shred of John Barron's philosophy
supported her.
"My awnly sin is I've lied to you, faither; an' you've no right to call me
evil names."
"Never call me faither no more, lewd slut! I be no faither o' thine, nor
never was. God A'mighty! a Tregenza a wanton! I'd rather cut my hand off
than b'lieve it so. It's this--this--blood-money--the price o' a damned
sawl! No more lyin'. I knaw--I knaw--an' the picksher--the ship of a true
man. It did ought to break your heart to see it, if you had wan. A
devil-spawned painting feller, in coorse. An' his black heart happy an'
content 'cause he've sent this filth. You stare, wi' your mother's
eyes--you stare, an' stare. Hell's yawning for 'e, wretched wummon, an' for
him as brot 'e to it!"
"He doan't believe in hell, no more doan't I," said Joan calmly; "an' it
ban't a faither's plaace to damn's awn flaish an' blood no way."
"Never name me thy faither no more! I ban't your faither, I tell 'e, an' I
do never mean to see thy faace agin. Go wheer you'm minded; but get 'e gone
from here. Tramp the broad road with the crowd--the narrer path's closed
agin 'e. And this--this--let it burn same as him what sent it will."
He picked up the note nearest to him, crumpled it into a ball and flung it
upon the fire.
"Michael, Michael!" cried his wife, rushing forward, "for God's love, what
be doin' of? The money ban't damned; the money's honest!"
But Joan did more than speak. As the gift flamed quickly up, then sunk to
gray ash, a tempest of passion carried her out of herself. She trembled in
her limbs, grew deadly pale, and flew at her father like a tigress. No evil
word had ever crossed her lips till then, though they had echoed in her
ears often enough. But now they jumped to her tongue, and she cursed Gray
Michael and tore the rest of the money out of his hand so quickly that his
intention of burning it was frustrated.
"It's mine, it's mine, blast you!" she screamed like a fury, "what right
have you to steal it? It's mine--gived me by wan whose shoe you ban't
worthy to latch! He's shawed me what you be, an' the likes o' you, wi' your
hell-fire an' prayin' an' sour looks. I ban't afeared 'o you no more--none
o' you. I be sick o' the smeech o' your God. 'Er's a poor thing alongside
o' mine an' Mister Jan's. I'll gaw, I'll gaw so far away as ever I can; an'
I'll never call 'e my faither agin, s'elp me God!"
Mrs. Tregenza had thanked Providence under her breath when Joan rescued the
notes, but now, almost for the first time, she realized that her own
interest in this pile of money was as nothing. Every penny belonged to her
stepdaughter, and her stepdaughter evidently meant to keep it. This
discovery hit her hard, and now the bitterness came forth in a flood of
words that tumbled each over the other and stung like hornets as they
settled.
Gray Michael's broadside had roared harmlessly over Joan's erect head;
Thomasin's small shot did not miss the mark. She was furious; her husband
stood dumb; her virago tongue hissed the truth; and Joan, listening, knew
that it was the truth.
No matter what the elder woman said. She missed no vile word of them all.
She called Joan every name that chills the ear of the fallen; and she
explained the meaning of her expressions; she bid the girl take herself and
the love-child within her from out the sight of honest folks; she told her
the man had turned his back forever, that only the ashy road of the ruined
remained for her to tread. And that was how the great news that Nature had
looked upon her for a mother came to Joan Tregenza. Here was the riddle of
the mysterious voice unraveled; here was the secret of her physical sorrows
made clear. She looked wildly from one to the other--from the man to the
woman; then she tottered a step away, clutching her money and her little
picture to her breast; and then she rolled over, a huddled, senseless heap,
upon the floor.
CHAPTER SIX
DRIFT
When Joan recovered consciousness she found her head and neck wet where her
stepmother had flung cold water over her. Thomasin was at that moment
burning a feather under her nose, but she stopped and withdrew it as the
girl's eyes opened.
"Theer, now you'll be well by night. He've gone aboard. Best to change your
gownd, for 'tis wetted. Then I'll tell 'e what 'er said. Can 'e get
upstairs?"
Joan rose slowly and went with swimming brain to her room. She still held
her picture and her money. She took off her wet clothes, then sat down upon
her bed to think; and as her mind grew clear, there crept through the
gloomy shadows of the past tragedy a joy. It lightened her heart a moment,
then vanished again, like the moon blotted suddenly from the sky by a rack
of storm-cloud. Joan was full of the stupendous news. The shock of hearing
her most unsuspected condition had indeed stricken her insensible, but it
was the surprise of it more than the dismay. Now she viewed the
circumstance with uncertainty, not knowing the attitude "Mister Jan" would
adopt toward it. She argued with herself long hours, and peace brooded over
her at the end; for, as his cherished utterances passed in review before
her memory, the sense and sum of them seemed to promise well. He would be
very glad to share in the little life that was upon the way to earth. He
always spoke kindly of children; he had called them the flower-buds in
Nature's lap. Yes, he must be glad; and Nature would smile too. Nature knew
what it was to be a mother, Joan told herself. She was in Nature's hand
henceforth. But her blue eyes grew cold when she thought of the morning. So
much for St. Madron and his holy water; so much for the good angels who her
dead parent had told her were forever stretching loving, invisible hands to
guard and shield. "Mister Jan's be the awnly God," she thought, "an' He'm
tu far aways to mind the likes o' we; so us must trust to the gert Mother
o' the flowers." She accepted the position with an open heart, then turned
her thoughts to her loved one. Having now firmly convinced herself that her
condition would bring him gratification and draw them still nearer each to
the other, Joan yearned unutterably for his presence. She puzzled her
brains to know how she might communicate with him, how hasten his return.
She remembered that he had once told her his surname, but she could not
recollect it now. He had always been "Mister Jan" to her.
She went down to her supper in the course of the evening, and the great
matter in her mind was for a while put aside before a present necessity.
Action, she found, would be immediately required of her. Her father, before
going from the kitchen after she had fainted, directed Thomasin to bid her
never see his face again. She must depart, according to his direction, on
the following day; for the thatched cottage upon the cliff could be her
home no more.
"Theer weern't no time for talkin'; but I lay 'er'll sing differ'nt when
next ashore. You bide quiet here till 'er's home agin. 'Tain't nachur to
bid's awn flaish an' blood go its ways like that. An', 'pears to me, as
'tedn' the law neither. But you bide till he'm back. I be sorry as I spawk
so sharp, but you was that bowldacious that my dander brawk loose. Aw
Jimmery! to think as you dedn' knaw you was cheeldin'!"
"'Twas hearin' so suddint like as made me come over fainty."
"Ate hearty then. An' mind henceforrard you'm feedin' an' drinkin' for two.
Best get to bed so soon's you can. Us'll talk 'bout this coil in the
marnin'."
"Us'll talk now. I be off by light. I 'edn' gwaine to stop no more. Faither
sez I ban't no cheel o' his an' he doan't want to see my faace agen. Then
he shaan't. I'll gaw to them as won't be 'shamed o' me: my mother's
people."
"Doan't 'e be in no tearin' hurry, Joan," said Mrs. Tregenza, thinking of
the money. "Let him, the chap, knaw fust what's come along o' his
carneying, an' maybe he'll marry 'e, as you sez, right away. Bide wi' me
till you tells en. Let en do what's right an' seemly. That's the shortest
road."
"Iss fay; he'm a true man. But I ban't gwaine to wait for en in this 'ouse.
To-morrow I'll send my box up Drift by the fust omblibus as belongs to
Staaft, an' walk myself, an' tell Uncle Thomas all's there is to tell.
He've got a heart in his breast, an' I'll bide 'long wi' him till Mister
Jan do come back."
"Wheer's he to now?"
"To Lunnon. He've gone to make his house vitty for me."
"Well, best to get Uncle Chirgwin to write to en, onless you'd like me to
do it for 'e."
"No. He'll do what's right--a proper, braave man."
"An 'mazin' rich seemin'ly. For the Lard's love, if you'm gwaine up Drift,
take care o' all that blessed money. Doan't say no word 'bout it till you'm
in the farm, for theer's them--the tinners out o' work an' sich--as 'ud
knock 'e on the head for half of it. To think as Michael burned a hunderd
pound! Just a flicker o' purpley fire an' a hunderd pound gone! 'Tis 'nough
to make a body rave."
The girl flushed, and something of her father's stern look seemed reflected
in her face.
"He stawl my money. No, I judge his word be truth: he'm no faither o' mine
if the blood in the veins do count for anything."
Joan went to bed abruptly on this remark, and lay awake thinking and
wondering through a long night--thinking what she should say to Uncle
Chirgwin, wondering when "Mister Jan" was coming back to her, and picturing
his excitement at her intelligence. In the morning she packed her box, ate
her breakfast, and then went into the village to find somebody who would
carry her scanty luggage as far as Penzance. From there, an omnibus ran
through Drift, past Mr. Chirgwin's farmhouse door. Joan herself designed to
walk, the distance by road from Newlyn being but trifling. It chanced that
the girl met Billy Jago, he who in early spring had cut down an elm tree
while John Barron watched. Him Joan knew, for he had worked on her uncle's
farm for many years. Mr. Jago, who could be relied upon to do simple
offices, undertook the task readily enough and presently arrived with a
wheelbarrow. He whined, as ever, about his physical sufferings, but drank a
cup of tea with evident enjoyment, then fetched Joan's box from her room
and set off with it to meet the public vehicle. Her goods were to be left
at Drift, and Joan herself started at an early hour, wishing to be at the
farm before her property. She walked in the garden for the last time,
marked the magic progress of spring, then took an unemotional leave of her
stepmother.
"There 'edn' no call to leave no message as I can see," said Joan, while
she stood at the door. "He ban't my faither, he sez, so I'll take it for
truth. But I'll ask you to kiss Tom for me. Us was allus good brother an'
sister, whether or no; an' I loves en dearly."
"Iss, I knaw. He'll grizzle an' fret proper when he finds you'm gone.
Good-by to 'e. May the Lard forgive 'e, an' send your man 'long smart; an'
for heaven's sake doan't lose them notes."
"They be safe stawed next to my skin. Uncle Chirgwin'll look to them; an'
you needn't be axin' God A'mighty to forgive me, 'cause I abbun done
nothin' to want it. I be Nature's cheel now; an' I be in kindly hands. You
caan't understand that, but I knaws what I knaws through bein' taught.
Good-by to 'e. Maybe us'll see each other bimebye."
Joan held out her hand and Mrs. Tregenza shook it. Then she stood and
watched her stepdaughter walk away into Newlyn. The day was cold and
unpleasant, with high winds and driving mists. The village looked grayer
than usual; the boats were nearly all away; the gulls fluttered in the
harbor making their eternal music. Seaward, white horses flecked the leaden
water; a steamer hooted hoarsely, looming large under the low, sullen sky,
as it came between the pierheads. Presently a scat of heavy rain on a
squall of wind shut out the harbor for a time. Mrs. Tregenza waited until
Joan had disappeared, then went back to her kitchen, closed the door, sat
in Gray Michael's great chair by the hearth, put her apron over her head
and wept. But the exact reason for her tears she could not have explained,
for she did not know it. Mingled emotions possessed her. Disappointment had
something to do with this present grief; sorrow for Joan was also
responsible for it in a measure. That the girl should have asked her to
kiss Tom was good, Thomasin thought, and the reflection moved her to
further tears; while that Joan was going to put her money into the keeping
of a simple old fool like Uncle Chirgwin seemed a highly pathetic
circumstance to Mrs. Tregenza. Indeed, the more she speculated upon it the
sadder it appeared.
Meanwhile Joan, leaving Newlyn and turning inland along the little lane
which has St. Peter's church and the Newlyn brook upon its right, escaped
the wind and found herself walking through an emerald woodland world all
wrapped in haze and rain. Past the smelting works, where purple smoke made
wonderful color in rising against the young green, over the brook and under
the avenue of great elms went Joan. Her heart ached this morning, and she
thought of yesterday. It seemed as though a hundred years of experience had
passed over her since she knelt by St. Madron's stone altar. She told
herself bitterly how much wiser she was to-day, and, so thinking strange
thoughts, tramped forward over Buryas Bridge, and faced the winding hill
beyond. Then came doubts. Perhaps after all St. Madron had answered her
prayer. Else why the underlying joy that now fringed her sorrows with
happiness?
Drift is a place well named, when seen, as then, gray through sad-colored
curtains of rain on the bare hilltop. But the orchard lands of the coomb
below were fair, and many primroses twinkled in the soaking green of the
tall hedge-banks. Joan splashed along through the mud, and presently a lump
rose in her throat, born of thoughts. It had seemed nothing to leave the
nest on the cliff, and she held her head high and thanked God for a great
deliverance. That was less than an hour ago; yet here, on the last hill to
Drift and within sight of the stone houses clustering at the summit, her
head sank lower and lower, and it was not the rain which dimmed her eyes.
She much doubted the value of further prayers now, yet every frantic hope
and aspiration found its vent in a petition to her new God, as Joan mounted
the hill. She prayed, because she could think of no other way to soothe her
heart; but her mind was very weary and sad--not at the spectacle of the
future, for that she knew was going to be fair enough--but at the vision of
the past, at the years ended forever, at the early pages of life closed and
locked, to be opened again no more. A childhood, mostly quite happy, was
over; she would probably visit the house wherein she was born never again.
But even in her sorrow, the girl wondered why she should be sad.
Mr. Chirgwin's farm fronted the highway, and its gray stone face was
separated therefrom by a small and neat patch of garden. Below the house a
gate opened into the farmyard, and Uncle Chirgwin's land chiefly sloped
away into the coomb behind, though certain fields upon the opposite side of
the highroad also pertained to him. The farmhouse was time-stained, and the
stone had taken some wealth of color where black and golden lichens fretted
it. The slates of the roof shone with wet and reflected a streak of white
light that now broke the clouds near the hidden sun. The drippings from the
eaves had made a neat row of little regular holes among the crocuses in the
garden. Tall jonquils also bent their heads there, heavy with water, and
the white violets which stood in patches upon either side of the front door
had each a raindrop glimmering within its cup. A japonica splashed one gray
wall with crimson blossoms and young green leaves; but, for the rest, this
house-front was quite bare. Joan saw Mary Chirgwin's neat hand in the snowy
short blinds which crossed the upper windows; and she knew that the
geraniums behind the diamond panes of the parlor were her uncle's care.
They dwelt indoors, winter and summer, and their lanky, straggling limbs
shut out much light.
The visitor did not go to the front door, whither a narrow path, flanked
with handsome masses of "Cornish diamonds," or quartz crystals, directly
led from the wicket, but entered at a larger gate which led into the
farmyard. Here cattle-byres and shippons ranged snugly on three sides of an
open space, their venerable slates yellow with lichens, their thatches
green with moss. In the center of the yard a great manure heap made
comfortable lying for pigs and poultry; while the farmhouse stretched back
upon the fourth side. Another gate opened beyond it, and led to the land
upon the sloping hill and in the valley below. Joan passed a row of cream
pans, shining like frosted silver in the mist, then turned from the bleak
and dripping world. The kitchen door was open, and revealed a large, low
chamber whose rafters were studded with orange-colored hams, whose
fireplace was vast and black save for a small wood fire filling but a
quarter of the hearth. Grocer's almanacs brought brave color to the walls,
sharing the same with a big dresser where the china made a play of
reflected light from the windows. Above the lofty mantel-piece there hung
an old fowling-piece, and a row of faded Daguerreotypes, into most of which
damp had eaten dull yellow patches. The mantel-shelf carried some rough
stoneware ornaments, an eight-day clock, a tobacco jar, and divers small
utensils of polished tin. A big table covered with American cloth filled
the center of the kitchen, a low settle crossed the alcove of the window,
and a leather screen, of four folds and five feet high, surrounded Uncle
Chirgwin's own roomy armchair in the chimney-corner. Strips of cocoanut
fiber lay upon the ground, but between them appeared the bare floor. It was
paved with blue stone for the most part, though here and there a square of
white broke the color; and the white patches had worn lower than the rest
under many generations of hobnailed boots. A faint odor of hams was in the
air, and the slight, stuffy smell of feathers.
A woman sat in the window as Joan entered. She had her back to the door,
and not hearing the footfall, went on with her work, which was the plucking
of a fowl. A cloth lay spread over the floor at her feet, and each moment
the pile of feathers upon it increased as the plucker worked with rhythmic
regularity and sang to herself the while.
Mary Chirgwin was a dark, good-looking girl, with a face in which strong
character appeared too prominently shadowed to leave room for absolute
beauty. But her features were regular if swarthy; her eyes were splendid,
and her brow, from which black hair was smoothly and plainly parted away,
rose broad and low. There was nothing to mark kinship between the cousins
save that both held their heads finely and possessed something of the same
distinction of carriage. Mary was eight-and-twenty, and, whatever might be
thought about her face, there could be but one opinion upon her feminine
splendor of figure. Her broad chest produced a strange speaking and singing
voice--mellow as Joan's, but far deeper in the notes. Mary gloried in
congregational melodies, and those who had not before heard her efforts at
church on Sundays would often mistake her voice for a man's. She was
dressed in print with a big apron overall; and her sleeves, turned up to
her elbows, showed a pair of fine arms, perfect as to shape, but brown of
color as the woman's face.
Joan stood motionless, then her cousin looked round suddenly and started
almost out of her chair at a sight so unexpected. But she composed herself
again instantly, put down the semi-naked fowl and came forward. They had
not seen each other since the time when Joe Noy flung over Mary for Joan;
and the latter, remembering this circumstance very well, had hoped she
might escape from meeting her cousin until after some talk with Uncle
Thomas. But Mary hid her emotion from Joan's sight, and they shook hands
and looked into one another's faces, each noting marked changes there since
the last occasion of their meeting. The elder spoke first, and went
straight to the past. It was her nature to have every connection and
concern of life upon a definite and clear understanding. She hated mystery,
she disliked things hidden, she never allowed the relations between herself
and any living being to stand otherwise than absolutely defined.