'Almost,' said Roland, 'she has made me believe that my name is Fletcher. Shall I to-morrow morning ask her for the bag? Where is that bag? Armorel, it is a true story. I am quite certain of it.'
'Oh, yes, it is true. Justinian knows about the wreck, though it happened before he was born. Mr. Fletcher was the only man saved of all the ship and company—captain, officers, crew, and passengers—the only one. He was rescued by Captain Rosevean himself and brought here. He had the bedroom where you sleep—the bedroom which was my brother Emanuel's room. Here he lay ill a long time, but recovered and went away.'
'And the bag?'
'I know nothing about the bag. That has gone long ago, I suppose, with all the money that my people made by smuggling and by piloting. I have seen her watching you for some days past: I thought she would speak to you last night. To-morrow she will have forgotten everything.'
'I suppose I have some kind of resemblance to Mr. Robert Fletcher, presumably deceased. Well—but, Armorel, this is a fortunate evening. The family luck has come back—I have brought it back. The Ancient one said so, and you are saved. She may call me Fletcher—call me Tryeth—call me any name that flyeth—if she only calls me him who arrived in time to save you, Armorel.'
CHAPTER XI
ROLAND'S LETTER
Roland went away. Like Mr. Robert Fletcher, he promised to return, and, like her great-great-grandmother, but for other reasons, Armorel treasured this promise. Also like Mr. Robert Fletcher, now presumably deceased, Roland went away with the sense of having left something behind him. Not his heart, dear reader. A young man of twenty-one does not give away his heart in the old-fashioned way any longer: he carries it about with him, carefully kept in its proper place: what Roland had left behind him, for awhile, was a part of himself. It would perhaps come back to him in good time, but for the present it remained on Samson, and discoursed to the rest of him in London whenever he would listen, on the beauties of that archipelago and the graces of the child Armorel. And this part of himself, which haunted Samson, made him sit down and write a letter. It would have been a tender, a sorrowful, an affectionate letter had it not been for that other part of him—the greater part—which went to London. That other part of him remonstrated. 'She is but a simple country girl,' it said. 'Her future will be to marry a simple Scillonian. Why disturb her mind? Why seek to plant the seeds of discontent under the guise of culture? Leave her—leave her to herself. Forget those dark eyes, in whose depths there seemed to lie so sweet, so great a soul. Believe me, there was nothing at all behind those eyes but ignorance and curiosity. How could there be anything? Leave her in peace. Or, since you must write, let it be a cold letter—friendly, but fatherly—and let her understand clearly that the visit can produce no further consequences whatever.' Thus the London half of him—the bigger half. Perhaps his friend Dick Stephenson remonstrated in the same strain. But the lesser half insisted on writing a letter of some kind—and had his way.
He wrote a letter, and sent it off.
It was the very first letter that had ever been sent to Samson. Of that I am quite sure. No letters ever reached that island. If people had business with Samson, they transacted it at the Port with Justinian or Peter. Of course it was the first letter that had ever been received by Armorel. Peter brought it across for her. He had wrapped the unaccustomed thing in brown paper for fear the spray should fall upon it. Armorel drew it forth from its covering and gazed upon it with the wonder of a child who gets an unexpected toy. She read over the address a dozen times: '"Miss Rosevean"—look at it, Dorcas. What a pity you cannot read! "Miss Rosevean"—he might have written "Armorel"—"Island of Samson, Scilly." Of course, it is from Roland. No one else would write to me.' Then she opened it carefully, so as not to injure any part of the writing—indeed, Roland possessed that desirable, but very rare, gift of a very beautiful hand. No Penman of the monastery: no scrivener of a later age: no Arab or Persian scribe, could write a more beautiful hand. It was a hand in which every letter was clearly formed, as if it made a picture of itself, and every word was a Group, like the Eastern Isles of Scilly, to be admired by the whole world.