kindness for her cousin. In poor Joan's pocket she found a wet, crumpled
mass of paper which might have been dried and read without difficulty, but
Mary lacked curiosity to approach the matter. She debated with herself as
to how her duty stood in connection with the communication from John
Barron, then took it in her hand, not without a sensation of much loathing,
and burned it to ashes. The act produced considerable and unforeseen
consequences. Her own mundane happiness was wholly dependent on the burning
of the letter, and a man's life likewise hung upon the incident; but these
results of her conduct were only brought to the woman's understanding in
the light of subsequent events. Then, and with just if superficial cause,
she directly read God's hand in the circumstance. Another discovery
saddened Mary far more than that of the letter, which had caused her little
surprise. Around Joan's white body was a strange amulet--the glen-ader. She
had sewed it upon flannel, then fastened the ends about herself, and so
worn the snake skin at all seasons since the finding of it. The fact was
nothing, the condition of mind which it indicated brought great grief to
the discoverer. She judged that Joan was little better than heathen after
all; she greatly feared that the girl had perished but half-believing. Any
soul which could thus cherish the slough of a serpent must most surely have
been wandering afar out of the road of faith. The all-embracing credulity
of Joan was, in fact, a phenomenon beyond Mary's power to estimate or
translate; and her present discovery, therefore, caused her both pain and
consternation. But as she had burned the letter, so she likewise destroyed
all evidence of her cousin's superstitious weakness; and of neither one nor
the other did she speak when the farmer returned to his home.
He was sadly crushed and broken; and the spectacle of his loved one, lying
silent and peaceful, brought with it deep grief for him. Not until he had
seen her and held her dead hand did he begin slowly to realize the truth.
"Her mother do lie at Paul 'cordin' to the wish o' Michael, but I seem as
Joan had best be laid 'long wi' the Chirgwins at Sancreed. If you'll awnly
give your mind to the matter an' settle it, I'll go this evenin' to wan
plaace or t'other an' see the diggers," said Mary.
"Sancreed for sartain. Her'll be nearer to us, an' us can see wheer she be
restin' 'pon Sundays. Sancreed's best an' fittest, for she was Chirgwin
all. They be comin' to sit 'pon her tomorrow marnin'. Please God He'll hold
me up agin it, but I feels as if I'd welcome death to be 'long-side my lil
Joan again."
He wept an old man's scanty tears, and Mary comforted him, while she
smothered her own real sorrows entirely before his. She spoke coldly and
practically; she fetched him a stiff dose of spirits and a mutton-chop
freshly cooked. These things she made him drink and eat, and she spoke to
the old man while he did so, larding the discussion of necessary details
with expressions of hope for the dead.
"Be strong, an' faace it, uncle. God knaws best. I lay the poor lovey was
took from gert evil to come. You knaw so well as me. You can guess wheer
her'd be now if livin'. She'm in a better home than that. I s'pose the
bury-in' might be two days off, or three. I'll step awver to Sancreed
bimebye, an' if the undertaker come, Mrs. Bartlett can be with him when he
do his work."
"Iss, an' I've said as 'tis to be oak--braave, bold, seasoned oak, an'
polished, wi' silvered handles to it. Her should lie in gawld, my awn Joan,
if I could bring it about."
"Ellum be more--" began Mary, then held her tongue upon that detail and
approached another.
"Shall us ask Mrs. Tregenza? Sorrer be gripping her heart just now, but a
buryin's a soothin' circumstance to such as she. An' she could carry her
son in the mind. Poor young Tom won't get no good words said above his
dust; us can awnly think 'em for him."
"She might like to come if her could get some o' the neighbors to bide
along wi' Michael. He'm daft for all time, but 'tis said as he'll be
childlike wi' it, thank God. I let en knaw 'bout the lass an' he rolled his
head an' dropped his jaw, like to a feesh, an' said as 'tweern't no news to
en. Which maybe it weern't, for the Lard's got His awn way wi' the idiot.
The sayin's of en! Like as not Thomasin'll be here if 'tis awnly to get the
rids of Michael for a while."
The coroner's inquest found that Joan Tregenza had come by her death from
drowning upon the night of the flood; the tragedy filled an obscure
paragraph or two in local journals; Joan's funeral was fixed for two days
later, and Mrs. Tregenza decided that she would attend it.
At a spot where fell the shadow of the church when the sun sank far
westerly on summer days, they dug the grave in Sancreed churchyard. Round
about it on slate slabs and upright stones appeared the names of Chirgwins
not a few. Her maternal grandparents lay there, her uncle, Mary's father,
and many others. Some of the graves dated back for a hundred and more
years.
On the morning of the funeral, Uncle Thomas himself tied scraps of crape
around the stems of his tall geraniums, according to an ancient custom; and
Mrs. Tregenza arrived at Drift in good time to join the few who mourned.
Six men bore Joan's oaken coffin to Sancreed, while there walked behind
her, Uncle Chirgwin, Mary and Thomasin, Mr. Bartlett, his wife, Gaffer
Polglaze, and two farm maidens. A few of the Drift folk and half a dozen
young children came in the wake of the procession proper; and that was all.
The mourners and their dead proceeded along the high lanes to Sancreed, and
conversation was general. Uncle Chirgwin tugged at his black gloves and
snuffled, then snuffled and tugged again; Mary walked on one side of him;
and Mrs. Tregenza, in new and heavy black bought for another, found the
opportunity convenient for the display of varied grief, as she marched
along on the farmer's right hand. Her condition indeed became hysterical,
and Mary only soothed her with difficulty. So the party crawled within
sound of the minute bell and presently reached the church. The undertaker
buzzed here and there issuing directions, an old clergyman met the dead at
the lych-gate and walked before her up the aisle; while those who had a
right to attend the service, clustered in the pews to right and left of the
trestles. Upon them lay Joan. The words of the service sounded with
mournful reverberations through the chill echoes of an unwarmed and almost
empty church; and then the little sister, sleeping peacefully enough after
her one short year of storm, was carried to the last abode of silence. Then
followed an old man's voice, sounding strangely thin in the open air, the
straining of cords, the sweating and hard breathing and shuffling of men,
the grating of oak on a grave-bottom, the updrawing of the ropes that had
lowered the coffin. Genuine grief accompanied the obsequies of Joan
Tregenza, and her uncle's sorrow touched even men to visible grief and
sympathy; but there was no heart to break for the heart which had itself
come so near to breaking, there was no mighty wellspring of love to be
choked with tears for one who had herself loved so much. A feeling, hidden
in some minds, expressed by others, latent in all, pervaded that throng;
and there was not one among those present, save Thomas Chirgwin, but felt
that Providence, harsh till now, had dealt kindly by Joan in dealing death
to her.
Upon the flowerless, shiny coffin-lid a staring plate of white metal
gleamed up at the world above like an eye and met the gaze of the mourners,
as each in turn, with Mrs. Tregenza first, peered down into Joan's grave
before departing. After which all went away; the children were shut out of
the churchyard; the old clergyman disappeared to the vestry; a young florid
man, with pale hair, tightened his leather belt, turned up his sleeves,
watched a grand pair of biceps roll up as he crooked his elbows, then,
taking a spade, set to work upon the wet mound he had dug from the earth
the day before to clear those few square feet of space below. As he worked,
he whistled, for his occupation held no more significance to him than an
alternative employment: the breaking of stones by the highway side. He
could see the black heads of the mourners bobbing away upon the road to
Drift, and stopped to watch them for a moment. But soon he returned to his
labor; the earth rose foot by foot, and the strong young man stamped it
down. Then it bulged and overflowed the full hole; whereupon he patted and
hammered it into the customary mound and slapped upon it sundry pieces of
sodden turf with gaping gashes between their edges. The surplus soil he
removed in a wheelbarrow, the boards he also took away, then raked over the
earth-smeared, bruised grass about the grave and so made an end of his
work.
"Blamed if I ever filled wan quicker'n that," he thought, with some
satisfaction; "I reckoned the rain must fall afore I'd done, but it do hold
off yet seemin'ly."
The man departed, gray twilight fell, and out from the gathering darkness,
like a wound on the hand of Time, that new-made grave and its fringe of
muddy grass stood forth, crude of color, raw, unsightly in the deepening
monochrome of the gloaming.
At Drift the important meal which follows a funeral was enjoyed with sober
satisfaction by about fifteen persons. Cold fowls and a round of cold beef
formed the main features of the repast; Mary poured out tea for the women
at her end of the table, while the men drank two or three bottles of
grocer's sherry among them. The undertaker and his assistants followed when
the funeral assembly dispersed. Mrs. Tregenza was about to depart in the
fly specially ordered to take her home when a lawyer, who was of the
company, begged she would stay a little longer.
"I learn that you are the deceased's stepmother, madam, and as you stand
related to the parties both now unhappily swept away by Providence--I mean
Thomas Tregenza and Joan--it is sufficiently clear that you inherit
directly the bequest left by the poor girl to her brother. I framed her
little will myself; failing her own child, her property went to Thomas
Tregenza, his heirs and assigns--those were the words. The paper is here;
the sum mentioned lies at interest of three per cent. Let me know when
convenient what you would wish to be done."
So the pile of money, at a cost terrible enough, had reached Mrs. Tregenza
after all. She had been drinking brown sherry as well as tea, and was in a
condition of renewed tears approaching to maudlin, when the announcement
reached her. It steadied the woman. Then the thought that this wealth would
have been her son's made her weep again, until the fact that it was now her
own became grasped in her mind. There is a sort of people who find money a
reasonably good support in all human misfortune, and if Mrs. Tregenza did
not entirely belong to that callous company, yet it is certain that this
sudden afflux of gold was more likely to assuage her grief than most
things. She presently retired, all tears and care; but at intervals, when
sorrow rested to regain its strength, the lawyer's information recurred and
the distractions of mind caused by the contemplation of a future brightened
by this wealth soothed Thomasin's nerves to an extent beyond the power of
religion or any other force which could possibly have been brought to bear
upon them. She felt that her own position must henceforth be exalted in
Newlyn, for the effects of the combination of catastrophes led to that end.
Her husband was the sole care she had left, and physicians foretold no
great length of days for him. The lugger would be put up to auction, with
the drift nets and all pertaining thereto. The cottage was already Tregenza
property. Thomasin therefore looked through the overwhelming misery of the
time, counted her moneys and felt comforted without knowing it. As for her
insane husband, his very sufferings magnified him into a man of importance,
and she enjoyed the reflected glory of being his keeper. People came from
remote villages to listen to him, and it was held a privilege among the
humbler sort to view the ruin of Michael Tregenza and hark to the chaotic
ravings of a mind overthrown.
CHAPTER TEN
THE HOME-COMING OF JOE
A fortnight and four days after the funeral of Joan Tregenza there blew a
southwest wind over Newlyn, from out a gray sky, dotted with watery blots
of darker gray. No added light marked the western horizon at sunset, but
the short, dull day simply fell headlong into night; and with darkness came
the rain.
About five o'clock in the afternoon, when the flicker and shine of many
lamps in little shop windows brightened the tortuous streets, a man clad in
tarpaulins, and carrying a big canvas bag on his back, passed rapidly
through the village. He had come that day from London upon the paying off
of his vessel; and while he left his two chests at the railway station, he
made shift to bring his sea-bag along himself; and that because he was
bound for the white cottage on the cliff, and the bag held many precious
foreign concerns for Joan Tregenza. It had been impossible to communicate
with the sailor; and he did not write from London to tell any of his
return, that their pleasure and surprise on his appearance might be the
more complete. Now a greater shock than that in his power to give waited
the man himself. The sailor's parents lived at Mousehole, but Michael's
cottage lay upon the way, and there he first designed to appear.
Joe Noy was a very big man, loosely but strongly set together, a Celt to
the backbone, hard, narrow of mind, but possessing rare determination. His
tanned, clean-shaven face was broader at the jaw than the eyes, and a
lowering heaviness of aspect, almost ape-like, resulted when his features
remained in repose. The effect, however, vanished when he spoke or listened
to the speech of another. That such a man had proved fickle in love was a
thing difficult to credit to the mind familiar with his character. Solid,
sober, simple, fearing God and lacking humor, the jilting of a woman was an
offense of all others least likely to have been associated with him. Yet
circumstances and some unsuspected secrets of disposition had brought about
that event; and now, as he hastened along, the vision of the dark woman he
once loved at Drift did not for an instant cross his thoughts, for they
were full of the fair girl he meant to marry at Newlyn. To her, at least,
he had kept faithful enough; she had been the guiding-star of his life for
hard upon a year of absence; not one morning, not one night, in fair
weather or foul, had he omitted to pray God's blessing upon her. A
fatalism, which his Luke Gospel tenets did not modify, was strong in the
sailor. He had seen death often enough in his business; and his instincts
told him, apart from all religious teaching, that those who died ripe for
salvation were but few. Every man appeared to be an instrument in God's
hand, and human free-will represented a condition quite beyond the scope of
his intelligence to estimate or even conceive. Had any justified in so
doing asked of him his reasons for desertion of Mary Chirgwin, Noy would
have explained that when inviting her to be his wife he took a wrong step
in darkness; that light had since suddenly shone upon him, as upon Saul,
and that Mary, choosing rather to remain outside the sure fold of Luke
Gospeldom, by so doing made it impossible for him to love her longer. He
would have added that the match was doubtless foredoomed according to the
arrangements of the Almighty.
Now Joe came back to his own; and his heart beat faster by several pulses,
and his steps quickened and lengthened, as, through darkness and rain, he
sighted the lamp-lighted cottage window of the Tregenzas. Thereupon he
stopped a moment, brought his bag to the ground, mopped his forehead, then,
raising the latch, strode straight into the kitchen without a knock of
warning. For a moment he imagined the room, lighted only by a dull glow of
firelight, to be empty; but then, amid familiar objects, he noted one not
familiar--a tall and roomy armchair. This stood beside the fireplace, and
in it sat Gray Michael.
"Why, so 'tis! Mr. Tregenza sure 'nough!" the traveler exclaimed, setting
down his bag and coming forward with hand outstretched. "Here I be at last
arter nine months o' salt water! An' Newlyn do smell pleasant in my nose as
I come back to it, I tell 'e!"
The other did not take Joe's hand; he looked up vaguely, with an open mouth
and no recognition in his expression; but Noy as yet failed to note how
insanity had robbed the great face of its power, had stamped out the
strength of it, had left it a mindless vague of limp features.
"Who be you then?" asked Mr. Tregenza.
"Why, blamed if you abbun forgot me! I be Joe--Joe Noy comed back-along at
last. My ivers! You, as doan't forget nothin', to forget me! Yet, maybe,
'tis the low light of the fire as hides me from 'e."
"You'm a mariner, I reckon?"
"I reckon so, if ever theer was wan. An' I'll be the richer by a mate's
ticket 'fore the year's dead. But never mind me. How be you all--all well?
I thot I'd pop in an' surprise 'e."
"Cruel fashion weather for pilchur fishin' us have had--cruel fashion
weather. I knawed 'tweer comin', same as Noah knawed 'fore the flood,
'cause the Lard tawld me. 'Forty years long was I grieved wi' this
generation.' But man tries the patience o' God these days. We'm like the
Ruan Vean men: 'doan't knaw an' won't larn.'"
"Iss fay, mister, true 'nough; but tell me 'bout 'e all an'--an' my Joan.
She've been the cherub aloft for me ever since I strained my eyes glazin'
for the last peep o' Carnwall when us sailed. How be my lil Joan?"
The other started, sat up in his chair and gripped the left arm of it,
while his right hand extended before him and he jolted it curiously with
all the fingers pointing down.
"Joan--Joan? In hell--ragin', roastin' hell--screechin', I lay, like a cat
in a bonfire. 'Tis lies they'll tell 'e 'bout her. She weern't
drownded--never. The devil set sail 'pon auld Chirgwin's hayrick, so they
sez, an' her sailed 'long wi' en. But 'theer rings, they was so high that
they was dreadful, an' theer rings weer full o' eyes round about.' She'm
damned, my son--called, not chosen. 'The crop o' the bunch' they called
her--the crop o' the devil's bunch she was--no cheel o' my gettin'. Her'll
burn for a million years or better--all along o' free-traadin'.
Free-traadin'! curse 'em--why doan't they call it smugglin' an' have done?"
Joe Noy had fallen back. He forgot to breathe, then Nature performed the
necessary act, and in a moment of the madman's silence his listener sucked
a long loud breath.
"Oh, my gracious Powers, what's fallen 'pon en?" he groaned aloud.
"God's strong, but the devil's stronger, you mind. Us must pray to the pit
now. 'Our devil which art in hell'--Ha! ha! ha! He hears fast enough, an'
pokes up the black horns of en at the first smell o' prayer. Not but what
my Tom's aloft, in the main-top o' paradise. I seed en pass 'pon a black
wave wi' a gray foamin' crest. An' the white sawl o' my bwoy went mountin'
and mountin' in shape o' a seabird. Men dies hard in salt water, you mind.
It plays wi' 'em like a cat wi' a mouse. But 'tis all wan: 'The Lard is
King an' sitteth 'tween the cherubims,' though the airth's twitchin', same
as a crab bein' boiled alive, all the time."
Noy looked round him wildly and was about to leave the cottage. Then it
struck him that the man's wife and daughter could not be far off. What
blasting catastrophe had robbed him of his mind the sailor knew not; but
once assured of the fact that Michael Tregenza was hopelessly insane, Noy
lent no credit to any of his utterances, and of course failed to dimly
guess at those facts upon which his ravings were based. Indeed he heard
little after the first rambling outburst, for his own thoughts were busy
with the problems of Tregenza's fate.
"Sit down, mariner. I shan't sail till marnin' an' you'm welcome. Theer be
thots in me so deep as Levant mine, but I doan't speak 'em for anybody's
hearin'. Joan weern't none o' mine, an' I knawed it, thanks be to God,
'fore ever she played loose. What do 'e think o' a thousand pound for a
sawl? Cheap as dirt--eh? 'Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud that our
prayer should not pass through.' Not as prayers can save what's lost for
all eternity 'fore 'tis born into time. He ruined her; he left her wi'
cheel; but ban't likely the unborn clay counts. God Hisself edn' gwaine to
damn a thing as never drawed breath. Who'd a thot the like o' her had got a
whore's forehead? An' tokened at that--tokened to a sailor-man by name o'
Noy. Let'n come home, let'n come home an' call the devil as did it to his
account. Let the Lard see to't so that man edn' 'lowed to flourish no more.
I be tu auld an' broken for any sich task. 'For the hurt o' the darter o'
my people I am hurt.'"
He spoke no more upon that head, though Noy, now awake to fear and horridly
conscious that he stood in the shadow of some tremendous ill, reaching far
beyond the madman, asked him frantically what he meant. But Michael's mind
had wandered off the subject again.
"I seed en cast forth a net, same as us does for macker'l, but 'twas sawls,
not feesh, they dragged in the bwoat; but braave an' few of 'em. The
devil's nets was the full wans, 'cause--"
At this moment Thomasin came in, saw a man by Mr. Tregenza, but did not
realize who had returned until she struck a light. Then, approaching, she
gasped her surprise and stood for a moment dumb, looking from her husband
to the sailor, from the sailor back to her husband. The horror on Noy's
face frightened her; indeed he was now strung to a pitch of frantic
excitement. He saw that the woman was altogether clad in black, that her
garments were new, that even her bonnet had a black flower in it; and,
despite his concern, he observed an appearance of prosperity about her,
though her face belied it, for Mrs. Tregenza was very thin, and far grayer
and older too than when he saw her last. He took the hand she stretched
shaking toward him; then a question burst from his lips.
"For God's sake speak an' tell me the worst on it. What terrible evil be
here? He'm--he'm daft seemin'ly; he's spawk the awfulest mad words as ever
comed from lips. An' Joan--doan't 'e say it--doan't 'e say 'tis true she'm
dead--not my lil treasure gone dead; an' me, ever since I went, countin'
the days an' hours 'gainst when I should come back?"
"Ay, my poor lad, 'tis true--all true. An' worse behind, Joe. Hip an' thigh
us be smitten--all gone from us; my awnly wan drownded--my awn bwoy; an'
Michael's brain brawk down along o' it. An' the bwoat an' nets be all sold;
though, thanks to God, they fetched good money. An' poor Joan tu--'pon the
same night as my Tom--drownded--in the gert land-flood up-long."
Gray Michael had been nodding his head and smiling as each item of the
mournful category was named. At Thomasin's last words he interrupted
angrily, and something of the old, deep tones of his voice echoed again.
"'Tis a lie! Dedn' I tell 'e, wummon, 'tweern't so? The devil took
her--body an' bones an' unborn baaby. They say she was found by the
meadowsweets; an' I say 'tis false. You may groan an' you may weep blood,
but you caan't chaange the things that have happened in time past--no; nor
more can God A'mighty."
His wife looked to see how Joe viewed this statement. A great local
superstition was growing up round Gray Michael, and his wild utterances
(sometimes profanely fearful beyond the possibility of setting down) were
listened to greedily as inspirations and oracles. Mrs. Tregenza herself
became presently imbued with something of this morbid and ignorant opinion.
Her deep wounds time promised to heal at the first intention, and the
significance now attributed to her insane husband grew to be a source of
real satisfaction to her. She dispensed the honor of interviews with
Michael as one distributes great gifts.
The force of circumstances and the futility of fighting against fate
impressed Thomasin mightily now, as Noy's wild eyes asked the question his
lips could not force themselves to frame. She sighed and bent her head and
turned her eyes away from him, then spoke hurriedly:
"I doan't knaw how to tell 'e, an' us reckoned theer weern't no call to,
an' us weern't gwaine to tell; but these things be in the Lard's hand an'
theer edn' no hidin' what He means to let out. A sorry, cruel home-comin'
for 'e, Joe. Poor lass, her's done wi' all her troubles now, an' the unborn
cheel tu. 'Tis very hard to stand up 'gainst, but the longest life's awnly
short, an' us ban't called 'pon to live it more'n wance, thank God."
Here she gave way to tears, and dried the same on a white
pocket-handkerchief with a black border.