A Singer from the Sea

by Amelia E. Barr

Then the subject of their marriage was frankly discussed. Roland was now honest and earnest enough, and yet Denas felt that the charm of the great question and answer had been lost in considering it. Spontaneity––that subtle element of all that is lovely and enchanting––had flown away at the first suspicion of constraint. Some sweet illusion that had always hung like a halo over this grand 121 decision evaded her consciousness; the glorious ideal had become a reality and lost all its enchantments in the change.

After a long discussion, it was finally arranged that Roland should meet Denas at a small way-station about four miles distant on the following Monday evening. From there they could take a train to Plymouth, and at Plymouth there was a Wesleyan minister whom Denas had seen and who she felt sure would marry them. From Plymouth to Exeter, Salisbury, and London was a straight road, and yet one which had many asides and not too easy to follow; though as to any fear of interruptions, they were hardly worth considering. Denas would leave her home as usual on Monday morning, and her parents would have no expectation of seeing her until the following Friday night. By that time she would be settled in London––she would have been Roland’s wife for nearly four days.

These arrangements were made on Friday night, and on the following morning Denas went home very early. As she took the cliff-road she felt that the spirit of change had entered into her heart and her imagination. The familiar path had become monotonously dreary; she had a kind of pity for the people who had not her hope of a speedy escape from it. The desolate winter beach, the lonely boats, the closed cottages––how inexorably common they looked! She felt that there must be something in the world better for her than such mean poverty. Roland’s words had indeed induced this utter weariness and contempt for the conditions of 122 her life, but the conditions themselves were thus made to give the most eloquent sanction to his advice and entreaties.

And when a girl has set her face toward a wrong road, nothing is sadder in life than the general certainty there is that every small event will urge her forward on it. Usually the home-coming of Denas was watched for and seen afar off, and some special dainty was simmering on the hob for her refreshment. There was all the pleasant flurry that belongs to love’s warm welcome. But she had delayed her return in order to spend the evening with Roland, and the environments of the morning had not the same air of easy happiness that attaches itself to the evening hours.

Joan was elbow-deep in her week’s cleaning and baking. John had the uncomfortable feeling of a man who knows himself in the way. He had only loitered around in order to see Denas and be sure that all was well with his girl. Then he was a trifle disappointed that she had not brought him his weekly paper. He went silently off to the boats, and Denas was annoyed and reproved by his patient look of disappointment. Women who are cleaning and baking are often, what is called by people less troublesomely employed, cross. Denas was sure her mother was cross and a little unreasonable. She had not time to listen to the village gossip; “it would keep till evening,” she said.

Then she bid Denas hurry up and get her father’s heavy guernsey mended and his bottle of water filled, ready for the boat. “They be going out on 123 the noon ebb,” she said, “and back with the midnight tide, and so take thought for the Sabbath; for your father, he do have to preach over to Pendree to-morrow, and the sermon more on his mind than the fishing––God help us!”

“Will father expect me to walk with him to Pendree to-morrow, mother? It is too far; I cannot walk so far.”

“Will he expect you? Not as I know by, Denas––if you don’t want to go. There be girls as would busy all to do so. But there! it is easy seen you are neither fatherish or motherish these days.”

“I wish father was rich enough to stay at home and never go to sea again.”

“That be a bit of nonsense! Your father has had a taking to the sea all his life; and he never could abide to be boxed up on land. Aw, my dear, John Penelles is a busker of a fisherman! The storm never yet did blow that down-daunted him! Tris says it is a great thing to see your father stand smiling by the wheel when the lightning be flying all across the elements and the big waves be threatening moment by moment to make a mouthful of the boat. That be the Penelles’ way, my dear; they come from a good old haveage;[3] but there, then, it be whist poor speed we make when our tongues tire our hands.”