A Singer from the Sea

by Amelia E. Barr

So she tried, in the very place of her sweet bride memories, to bring back the first passion of her widowed grief. She tried to fill the empty chair with Roland’s familiar form and the silent space with his happy voice. Alas! other thoughts would intrude; considerations about Elizabeth’s attitude, about her home, about her future. For she knew that this part of her life was finished; that nothing could ever bring back its conditions. They had been absolutely barren conditions. Her duties as a wife and a mother were over. Her career as a singer was over. No single claim of friendship or interest from its past bound her. When she had seen Elizabeth these last years of her being and doing would be a shut book. Nothing but her change of name and, perhaps, a little money would remain to testify that Denas Penelles had ever been Denasia Tresham.

Do as she would, she could not keep these thoughts apart from her memories of her lover and her husband. She arrested her mind continually and bade herself remember the days of her gay bridal, or else those two lonely graves far beyond the western sea; and then, ere she was aware, her memories of the past had become speculations about the future. And she was abashed by this arid, incurable egotism in 279 the most secret place of her soul. She felt it making itself known continually in her hard determination to make the best of things; she knew that it was this feeling which was determined to close the death chamber, to deny all torturing memories; which said, in effect, “what is finished is finished, and the dead are dead.”

But the conflict wearied her almost to insensibility. She was also physically exhausted by travel, and the next day she slept profoundly until nearly the noon hour. It had been her intention to see Elizabeth in the morning, and she was provoked at her own remissness, for what she feared in reality happened––Elizabeth was out driving when she reached her residence. The porter thought it would be six o’clock ere she could receive any visitor, “business or no business.”

Denas said she would call at six o’clock, and charged the man to tell his mistress so.

But the visit and the engagement passed from the servant’s mind. In fact, he had, as he claimed, a very genteel mind. Callers who came in a common cab did not find an entry into it. Elizabeth returned in due season from her drive, drank a cup of tea, and then made her evening toilet. For Lord Sudleigh was to dine with her, and Lord Sudleigh was the most important person in Elizabeth’s life. It was her intention, as soon as she had paid the last tittle of mint, anise, and cummin to Mr. Burrell’s memory, to become Lady Sudleigh. Everyone said it was a most proper alliance, the proposed bride 280 having money and beauty and the bridegroom-elect birth, political influence, and quite as much love as was necessary to such a matrimonial contract.

Elizabeth, however, in spite of her pleasant prospect for the evening, was in a bad temper. The bishop’s wife had snubbed her in the drive, and her dressmaker had disappointed her in a new costume. The March wind also had reddened her face, and perhaps she had a premonition of trouble, which she did not care to investigate. When informed that there was a lady waiting to see her on important business, she simply elected to let her wait until her toilet was finished. She had a conviction that it was some officious patroness on a charity mission––someone who wanted money for the good of other people. And as there are times when we all feel the claims of charity to be an unwarrantable imposition, so Elizabeth, blown-about, sun-browned, snubbed, disappointed, and anxious about her lover, was not, on this particular occasion, more to blame for want of courtesy than many others have been.

Finally she descended to the drawing-room and was ready to receive her visitor. There was a very large mirror in the room, and pending her entrance Elizabeth stood before it noticing the set and flow of her black lace dress, its heliotrope ribbons, and the sparkle of the hidden jets upon the bodice. Some heliotrope blossoms were in her breast, and her hands were covered with gloves of the same delicate colour. Denas saw her thus; saw her reflection in the glass before she turned to confront her.

For a moment Elizabeth was puzzled. The white 281 face amid its sombre, heavy draperies had a familiarity she strove to name, but could not. But as Denasia came forward, some trick of head-carriage or of walking revealed her personality, and Elizabeth cried out in a kind of angry amazement:

“Denas! You here?”

“I am no more Denas to you than you are Elizabeth to me.”