A Singer from the Sea

by Amelia E. Barr

He remained with his sister ten days, and thoroughly enjoyed the change of life. And indeed he found himself quite a little hero in St. Penfer. Miss Mohun met him with smiles; she asked sweetly after Mrs. Tresham and never once named the fifty pounds Roland had promised her. The landlady of the Black Lion made a great deal of him. She came herself of fisher-folk, and she was pleased that the young gentleman had treated her caste honourably. The landlord gave him cigars and 193 wine, and all the old companions of his pleasures and necessities showed him that they approved his conduct. The Rev. Mr. Farrar made a point of praising him. As he stood with the landlord of the Black Lion at the open door of the inn, he said to him:

“Mr. Tresham, I respect your strength of character. I know that in certain circles of society it is considered a slight offence for a young man to seduce a girl of the lower orders; but that a mesalliance with her is a social crime almost unpardonable. You have said boldly to the whole community that it is more ungentlemanly to wrong a poor girl’s honour than to marry a wife below your own station. Sir, such an example is worth all the sermons that could be preached on the subject.”

And Roland listened to all the spoken and unspoken praise given him with a smiling appropriation. It really never struck him, or apparently anyone else, that Denas might have been the person who took care of her own honour; or that Roland had done right because he could not induce his companion to do wrong. And there was another popular view of this marriage which was singularly false––the general assumption that Denas had been greatly honoured by it, and that John and Joan Penelles ought to be pleased and satisfied. Why not? Such a decision was the evident one, and how many people have the time or the interest in any subject to go below or beyond the evident?

One morning when Roland had been put into a very good humour by the public approval of his 194 conduct, he saw John Penelles and Tris Penrose and two other fishers go into the Ship Inn together. They had Lawyer Tremaine with them, and were doubtless met to complete the sale or purchase of some fishing-craft. Roland knew that it would be an affair to occupy two or three hours, and he suddenly resolved to go down the cliff and interview his mother-in-law. It would please Denasia, and he was himself in that reckless mood of self-complacency which delights in testing its influence.

Without further consideration he lit a fresh cigar and went down the familiar path. It was full of memories of his wooing of Denas, and he smiled with a soft triumph to them. And the exquisite morning, the thrushes singing to the sun, the fluting of the blackbirds, the south wind swinging the blue-bells, the mystical murmur of the sea––all these things set themselves unconsciously to his overweening self-satisfaction.

The door of the Penelles cottage was wide open, and he stood a moment looking into it. The place had an Homeric simplicity and beauty which touched his sense of fitness. On the snow-white hearth there was a handful of red fire, and the bright black hob held the shining kettle. A rug of knitted bits of many-coloured cloths was before it, and on this rug stood John’s big cushioned chair. The floor was white as pipeclay could make it; the walls covered with racks of showy crockery; the spotless windows quite shaded with blossoming flowers; and the deal furniture had been 195 scrubbed with oatmeal until it had the colour and the beauty of ivory.

Joan sat with her back to the door. She was perfectly still. At her feet there was a pile of nets, and she was mending the broken meshes. When Roland tapped she let them fall and stood upright. She knew him at once. Her fine rosy face turned grey as ashes. She folded her arms across her breast and stood looking at the intruder. For a moment they remained thus––the gay, handsome, fashionably-dressed young man smiling at the tall grave woman in her neat print gown and white linen cap. Roland broke the silence.

“I am Roland Tresham,” he said pleasantly.

“I do know you. What be you come for? Is Denas––where be my child? Oh, man, why don’t you say the words, whatever they be?”

“I am sorry if I frightened you. I thought you might like to know that Denas was well and happy.”