“Sit down, mother, and tell me all. I have seen that father’s ways are changed and that he seldom goes to the fishing. I hoped the reason was that he had no longer any need to go regularly.”
“No need? Aw, my dear, he has no boat!”
“No boat! Mother, what do you mean to tell me?”
“I mean, child, that on the same night the steamer Lorne was wrecked your father lost his boat and his nets, and barely got to land with his life––never would have done that but for Tris Penrose, who lost all, too––and both of them at the mercy of the waves when the life-boat reached them. Aw, my dear, a 305 bad night. And bad times ever since for your father. Now and then he do get a night with Trenager, or Penlow, or Adam Oliver; but they be only making a job for him. And when pilchard time comes, ’tis to St. Ives he must go and hire himself out––at his age, too. It makes me ugly, Denas. My old dear hiring himself out after he have sailed his own boat ever since man he was. And then to see you spending pounds and pounds on school-benches and books, and talking of it not mattering if you was paid or not paid; and me weighing every penny-piece, and your father counting the pipefuls in his tobacco-jar. Aw, ’tis cruel hard! Cruel! cruel!”
“Now, then, mother, dry your eyes––and there––let me kiss them dry. Listen: Father shall have the finest fishing-boat that sails out of any Cornish port. Oh, mother, dear! Spend every penny you want to spend, and I will go to the church town this afternoon to buy father tobacco for a whole year.”
“Let me cry! Let me cry for joy, Denas! Let me cry for joy! You have rolled a stone off my heart. Be you rich, dear?”
“Not rich, mother, but I have sixteen hundred pounds at interest.”
“Sixteen hundred silent pounds, and they might have been busy, happy, working pounds! Aw, Denas, what hours of black care the knowing of them might have saved us. But there, then––I had forgotten. The money be dance money and theatre money, and your father will not touch a penny of it. I do know he will not.”
“Mother, when I stopped singing––when I left the theatre for ever I had not in my purse one half-penny. Roland gave me fifty dollars; that came from Elizabeth––that was all I had. When it was gone, Roland was employed by Mr. Lanhearne. I told you about him.”