OMENS OF DARKNESS
Look here upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what grace was seated on his brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself.
An eye like Mars to threaten or command.
--_Hamlet_, Act III, Scene 3.
She looked up as if surprised at my question.
"Hate you, shun you, Roger," she repeated. "Whatever led you to ask
such a question?"
"How can I help asking it," I said, "when it is true? You never have a
word for me now. Your every thought is given to my brother. I suppose
it is because Roger is a boor, Roger is a clown, Roger is ugly."
"What can possess you to speak in such a way?" she said.
I knew I had spoken foolishly; but I could not help it. I was mad with
rage and jealousy. Having once begun to speak, all judgment and
discretion were gone. I was determined to know my fate, determined to
know if she loved my brother Wilfred.
"Possess me!" I answered. "Well, I hardly know; but this I know. Ever
since my prig of a brother has come home from Oxford with his affected
smile and flattering ways, Ruth has had no ears or eyes for any one
else."
"Still I fail to understand you," she said.
"I do not doubt," I replied, savagely, "that I am too ignorant a clown
to make my meaning clear. Were Wilfred speaking, you would understand
him. He would put his thoughts in such poetic language, and speak in
such cooing tones, that little Ruth would be made to think as he
thought, and feel as he felt; but I--I am nobody."
"Roger," she said, "you are not kind, you are not speaking like my big
brother."
"No, I cannot," I said, "I do not feel that I am your brother. What
kind feeling have you towards me? Not a jot. It is Wilfred, Wilfred,
ever Wilfred."
She walked on by my side in silence, I feeling that I had been a brute,
a savage. What right had I to speak so roughly, and thus to annoy her?
I looked down at her face, and I saw that her eyes were filled with
tears and her lips trembled. For a moment my jealousy and anger were
gone.
"Forgive me, sister Ruth," I said, "I ought not to speak so. Try and
forget what I have said. See, we are in Honeysuckle-lane, and here is
some."
I picked a sprig of honeysuckle as I spoke and gave it to her, which
she received kindly. This emboldened me. Perhaps after all I was not
so hateful to her.
I have not a very poetical nature; but I think the scene by which we
were surrounded aroused what little I had. The birds were finding
their way to the hedgerows to seek rest for the night, ever and anon
giving a faint chirp of content. The beetles went humming heedlessly
by, the bees laden with honey returned to their hives, and all nature
seemed to be at peace. The honeysuckle and the hedge flowers that grew
in wild confusion perfumed the lane in which we walked; the nuts hung
in thick clusters on the fences, blackberries everywhere abounded. One
by one the stars came out of their obscurity until the heavens became
glorious; and as we walked on, the evening became more still. The
harvesters reached their homes, and we no longer heard the sound of
their voices. The night wind served only to make delicious music as it
played with the leaves on the trees and hedges or coquetted with the
golden corn. Now and then we could hear the sea murmur its old, old
song. To me it told of peace, and calm, and beauty.
And I was alone with the maiden whom I loved more dearly than my life.
I said that her kindness emboldened me, so with great trembling hands I
took her bonnet from her head and wove a piece of honeysuckle amid her
nut-brown hair.
Beautiful, beautiful Ruth! Yes, after the long stretch of weary years
I still call her so; but that night she was to me more than beautiful,
she was like an angel. I was young and unsophisticated, and--and I did
not know what was coming.
For fully five minutes we did not speak. Slowly we walked side by side
in the calm still eventide, until we emerged from the lane, and went
towards Pentvargle Cove. Then the sight of the rugged cliffs seemed to
alter my feelings, and the old jealous passion returned. I could see
the five great prongs of the "Devil's Tooth" towering into the sky, and
I could not help thinking of the time, years ago, when I had scaled its
slippery precipitous sides to save the girl at my side. Again the old
desire to know the worst came back to me. Did Ruth love my brother
Wilfred?
"Do you see the 'Devil's Tooth' yonder, Ruth?" I said.
"Yes," she said, "how calm the sea is now. How different from when I
saw it first. Then--but I cannot bear to think about it, can you?" and
she shuddered as she spoke.
"Oh, yes," I said. "I like to think about it. Why, Ruth, I was able
to save you, you know."
She was silent, and again a bitter feeling crept into my heart.
"Don't you wish it had been Wilfred who saved you, instead of Roger?" I
asked, a little bitterly.
"Why?" she said, quickly.
"Because you seem to think so much more about him. You like to be in
his company, and you treasure every word that he says."
I thought she looked confused, as she said hurriedly, "Why should I
not?"
At this answer I was as much the slave to my mad feelings as when we
had commenced our walk. It was bitter hard for me. There, in sight of
the very place where I had saved her, she admitted her preference for
him who had done nothing for her.
"Why should you not?" I answered, boisterously, "why not indeed. There
is every reason why you should. No doubt you wish Wilfred were the
elder son and I the younger. No doubt you wish he were Trewinion's
heir, and that I were penniless."
"No, Roger," she said, "were you penniless, and were your father to
die, you would have no means of obtaining a livelihood. It is best as
it is."
Blunt and dull of perception as I was I could not help seeing the
purport of this. She thought me too much of a fool to earn a living;
that it was only by the money which I inherited as a birthright I was
saved from starving.
"I see the point of your answer, Ruth," I said. "You think Wilfred far
more fit for the position of Trewinion's heir than I, and that I am too
ignorant a clown to get a living for myself."
"I cannot help what conclusions you draw from my words, Roger," she
replied.
"There is only one conclusion to be drawn," I answered. "You think
Wilfred better than I. You think he should be master, and not I. You
think I am a brute, a savage."
"I think no such thing," she replied, "but you must yourself feel the
difference between you and him. He is kind, thoughtful, gentle; he is
cultured and refined. He gives way to no fits of passion, nor does he
seek to hurt one's feelings."
"Yes, yes," I said, bitterly. "He has been to Oxford, and has learnt
tricks dear to a woman's heart, and, having learnt them, he knows how
to practise them. He can quote poetry, and make soft speeches; he can
please you with flattery. His face is pale and interesting, his hands
are soft and white; and Ruth is very fond of him."
"You are unkind, and you are unjust, Roger. If he has been fonder of
study than you, and if he has learnt to govern his temper, don't be
jealous or cruel. Better try and emulate him. You call yourself
boorish and clownish. Try and improve yourself; and then, perhaps, you
will not feel so much inferior to your brother."
As I have said before, no one cares to hear another say what in
self-disparaging moments he often says about himself. A dozen times in
the last fortnight had I spoken of myself as inferior to my brother,
but for another to say it was wormwood and gall to me.
"Copy my brother!" I said, savagely. "Be a soft-fingered coward like
him! To be afraid of my own shadow like him! Copy him! Why he is but
a mere woman disgracing the clothes he wears. Had I been a puny thing
like him I should have ran away just as he did, and left you to die on
yon rocks. And yet you talk of my copying him. Why, he's just a
soft-muscled contemptible coward."
"I scarcely know which I like less," she cried, "a coward--although I
don't admit that your brother is one--or one who boasts of his own
bravery and taunts you with his own kind deeds. Roger, do you think
because you cannot appreciate your brother's nobleness that it does not
exist?"
This silenced me. I had been answered. She had championed my brother.
She had declared in so many words that she preferred him to me. She
regarded what I had done for her as nothing.
I found then that my passion had been inflamed by hope, that my
jealousy was due to this reason. No sooner did Ruth speak in the way I
have described than a dull despair laid hold of my heart, and I was
dumb. I could see now that she loved Wilfred, and that she saw
nobility in him, which, in her opinion my nature was too poor to see,
that the fact of my having saved her life was to her little more than
the action of an animal, who acted instinctively without a thought of
danger. Well, on the whole I was glad to know the worst. I knew how
to act now, I was not upheld by any false hope.
"I am glad you have told me this, Ruth," I said quietly. "It is best
that I should know. I am afraid I have behaved very rudely! forgive me
and you shall have no reason to complain again."
She clutched my arm tightly, and seemed about to protest, but I did not
allow her to speak.
"It was mean and unmanly of me to say what I have," I said, "but I was
excited and almost beside myself; let us walk more rapidly towards
home."
At this Ruth looked at my face as if in surprise, and began to speak.
"I hope I have not hurt your feelings, Roger, but I--that is----"
"Pray, don't distress yourself, Ruth," I said. "It is well you have
spoken and let me see the truth. Perchance I shall be thankful some
day that you have spoken. Look, what's that?"
I pointed towards the "Devil's Tooth," which we could still see rising
clearly against the sky. On its very summit was a small flickering
light, and in my fancy I saw a dark form moving among its rugged peaks.
"It's a light," said Ruth, as if glad to change the subject; "what can
it mean?"
"It means death," I said.
"Death! I don't understand, Roger."
"Whenever any one sees a light on the 'Devil's Tooth' it means death to
some one belonging to the man or woman who first saw it," I replied
with a shudder.
"But that's only a superstition," replied Ruth, "surely you will pay no
attention to such stories."
I knew it was only a superstition; but such is the power of education
and association that I could do no other than believe the warning to be
real. Why should it come just now when I was so little able to bear
it? Why should a darker cloud blacken my sky than was already there?
I looked again. The light was gone, but surely I saw even in the pale
moonlight a dark moving figure. Try as I would to banish the feeling I
could not help fearing that a dread calamity was about to fall on me.
I felt ill able to bear it. I had been stunned by the fact of Ruth's
love for Wilfred and her dislike for me. It is true she had not told
me in as many words that she disliked me, or that she loved Wilfred
better, but I was convinced that she thought him more noble and true,
and that there was no hope of her ever coming to love me.
It was quite dark now, and we were away from the soothing influences of
the green honeysuckle lane and the rustling of the ripe corn. We were
walking on the top of the cliff and could see the misty outline of the
coast. We walked slowly on for some distance, and then we both
stopped, trying to see if the dark form were a reality or only a fancy.
Scarcely had we done so when I felt my arm touched.
"What be 'ee lookin' for, Maaster Roger, my dear?" said a
half-wheedling, half-mocking voice.
I turned and saw Deborah Teague.
I must confess that seeing her there alone made me feel strangely. She
had not spoken to me since the night when we met in the cave of evil
repute. Whenever we did chance to meet she looked steadily on the
ground, never answering any words I might address to her. I did not
wonder at this, for I fancied she had some ill-will towards me for not
complying with her wishes, but I did wonder at her coming now and
speaking to me in this familiar way. Nevertheless, I answered quietly:
"I thought I saw some one on the 'Devil's Tooth,' but I'm not sure."
"Ded 'ee zee a light jist now?" she continued.
"Yes, I did," I replied.
"Do 'ee knaw who made the light?"
"No," I replied. "I have been wondering what it meant."
"Iss, and you've bin tellin' Miss Ruth 'bout it, aint 'ee, Maaster
Roger? I'll tell 'ee what you've zid (seen). You've zid Betsey
Fraddam, my dear, and you do knaw what that do main."
"I know what foolish people say it means," I replied, "but I do not
know what it really means."
"Do'ant 'ee? But you will. 'Tis nearly come, Maaster Roger. You
defied and got vexed with they who would kip this from comin'; but 'tis
comin' now!"
"What's coming now?"
"Trewinion's curse," she screamed.
"You hag," I cried, aroused into a passion. "You have ill-wished me."
"Ill-wished 'ee? No, I ain't, and that you do knaw. We can't ill-wish
a eldest son; but the curse es comin', and that we could have kipt off."
"See there, see there!" she continued, pointing towards the great
forbidding-looking rock, "do 'ee zee the light? I can!"
Again I saw the flickering light on the rock between the great prongs,
and my flesh crept with fear.
"Ted'n too late, is it?" she said. "Come to th' ould plaace to-night
at the same time, and we may do summin."
"Do you think I'm a fool?" I said. "You cannot gull me with your
stories, for I know your tricks."
She laughed in my face, revealing gums that were toothless save for one
yellow fang that rested on her lower lip.
"Oa, I remember it, Maaster Roger," she said. "Ould Debrah do knaw the
curse. La me zee, how do it go?--
His power be given to another,
And he be crushed by younger brother,
Then his son, though born the first,
By the people shall be cursed;
And for generations three
Trewinion's heirs shall cursed be!
The old woman recited these lines glibly, as though they had been often
on her lips, and she chuckled as she repeated them.
"Go home," I said, angrily, "and trouble me no longer with your ugly
face."
"Iss! Iss! I'll go," she screamed; "but there'll be black days for
you. Ah, yer brother'll be wise if you be'ant. Ah, a Trewinion
disgraced, starvin', ruined!"
I turned savagely towards her, but old as she was she nimbly stepped
out of my way, and pointed to the five-pronged rock.
"The light es gone, and Maaster Roger's hope es gone, unless he do come
to Betsy Fraddam's cave at midnight, and there 'ee'll zee strange
things."
"You'll suffer for this, Deborah," I said, almost beside myself.
"Zee where you're standin'," she screamed, "and think of what you zeed
three years agone, when you went to see the passen."
I looked, and, to my horror, I remembered that long years before I had
on this very spot seen a figure in white, which had disappeared on the
edge of the cliff.
I was so astonished that for a minute I did not move, and when I
recovered my senses Deborah had gone, although I thought I heard her
croaking, mocking laugh a little distance away.
"The old woman is mad, Roger," said Ruth; "let us go home quickly."
I was nothing loth. I hurried on as though the furies were behind me,
while Ruth was evidently as anxious as I to get indoors.
We had entered the old postern door, and were walking up the drive
leading to the house, when a servant met me.
"Mr. Roger," he said, anxiously, "you must please come in at once."
"Why, is anything the matter?"
"Yes, your father has fallen off his horse and is badly hurt."
A great dread laid hold of me, but I hurried towards his room.