In the Roar of the Sea/Chapter 45
CHAPTER XLV.
GONE FROM ITS PLACE.
There are persons, they are not many, on whom Luck smiles and showers gold. Not a steady daily downpour of money but, whenever a little cloud darkens their sky, that same little cloud, which to others would be mere gloom, opens and discharges on them a sprinkling of gold pieces.
It is not always the case that those who have rich relatives come in for good things from them. In many cases there are such on whom Luck turns her back, but to those of whom we speak the rain of gold, and the snow of scrip and bonds come unexpectedly, but inevitably. Just as Pilatus catches every cloud that drifts over Switzerland, so do they by some fatality catch something out of every trouble, that tends materially to solace their feelings, lacerated by that trouble. But not so only. These little showers fall to them from relatives they have taken no trouble to keep on good terms with, from acquaintances whom they have cut, admirers whose good opinion they have not concerned themselves to cultivate, friends with whom they have quarrelled. Gideon's fleece, on one occasion, gathered to itself all the dew that fell, and left the grass of the field around quite dry. So do these fortunate persons concentrate on themselves, fortuitively it seems, the dew of richness that descends and might have, ought to have, dropped elsewhere; at all events, ought to have been more evenly and impartially distributed. Gideon's fleece, on another occasion was dry, when all the glebe was dripping. So is it with certain unfortunates, Luck never favors them. What they have expected and counted on they do not get, it is diverted, it drops round about them on every side, only on them it never falls.
Now, Miss Trevisa cannot be said to have belonged to either of these classes. To the latter she had pertained till suddenly, from a quarter quite unregarded, there came down on her a very satisfactory little splash. Of relatives that were rich she had none, because she had no relatives at all. Of bosom friends she had none, for her bosom was of that unyielding nature, that no one would like to be taken to it. But, before the marriage of her brother, and before he became rector of S. Enodoc, when he was but a poor curate, she had been companion to a spinster lady, Miss Ceely, near S. Austell. Now the companion is supposed to be a person without an opinion of her own, always standing in a cringing position to receive the opinion of her mistress, then to turn it over and give it forth as her own. She is, if she be a proper companion, a mere echo of the sentiments of her employer. Moreover, she is expected to be amiable, never to resent a rude word, never to take umbrage at neglect, always to be ready to dance attendance on her mistress, and with enthusiasm of devotion, real or simulated, to carry out her most absurd wishes, unreasoningly. But Miss Trevisa had been, as a companion, all that a companion ought not to be. She had argued with Miss Ceely, invariably, had crossed her opinions, had grumbled at her when she asked that anything might be done, raised difficulties, piled up objections, blocked the way to whatever Miss Ceely particularly set the heart on having executed. The two ladies were always quarrelling, always calling each other names, and it was a marvel to the relatives of Miss Ceely that she and her companion hung together for longer than a month. Nevertheless they did. Miss Trevisa left the old lady when Mr. Peter Trevisa became rector of S. Enodoc, and then Miss Ceely obtained in her place quite an ideal companion, a very mirror she had but to look on her face, smile, and a smile was repeated, weep, and tears came in the mirror. The new companion grovelled at her feet, licked the dust off her shoes, fawned on her hand, ran herself off her legs to serve her, grew gray under the misery of enduring Miss Ceely's jibes and sneers and insults, finally sacrificed her health in nursing her. When Miss Ceely's will was opened it was found that she had left nothing—not a farthing to this obsequious attendant, but had bequeathed fifteen hundred pounds, free of legacy duty, and all her furniture and her house to Miss Trevisa, with whom she had not kept up correspondence for twenty-three years. It really seemed as if leathery, rusty Aunt Dionyvsia, from being a dry Gideon's fleece, were about to be turned into a wet and wringable fleece. No one was more astounded than herself.
It was now necessary that Miss Trevisa should go to S. Austell and see after what had come to her thus unsolicited and unexpectedly. All need for her to remain at Pentyre was at an end.
Before she departed—not finally, but to see about the furniture that was now hers, and to make up her mind whether to keep or to sell it—she called Judith to her.
That day, the events of which were given in last chapter, had produced a profound impression on Jamie. He had become gloomy, timid, and silent. His old idle chatter ceased. He clung to his sister, and accompanied her wherever she went; he could not endure to be with Coppinger. When he heard his voice, caught a glimpse of him, he ran away and hid. Jamie had been humored as a child, never beaten, scolded, put in a corner, sent to bed, cut off his pudding, but the rod had now been applied to his back and his first experience of corporal punishment was the cruel and vindictive hiding administered, not for any fault he had committed but because he had done his sister's bidding. He was filled with hatred of Coppinger, mingled with fear, and when alone with Judith would break out into exclamations of entreaty that she would run away with him, and of detestation of the man who held them there, as it were prisoners.
"Ju," said he, "I wish he were dead. I hate him. Why doesn't God kill him and set us free?"
At another time he said, "Ju, dear! You do not love him." "I wish I were a big strong man like Oliver, and I would do what Captain Cruel did."
"What do you mean?"
"Captain Cruel shot at Oliver."
"This was the first tidings Judith had heard of the attempt on Oliver's life.
"He is a mean coward," said Jamie. "He hid behind a hedge and shot at him. But he did not hurt him."
"God preserved him," said Judith.
"Why does not God preserve us? Why did God let that beast——"
"Hush, Jamie!"
"I will not—that wretch—beat me? Why did He not send lightning and strike him dead?"
"I cannot tell you, darling. We must wait and trust."
"I am tired of waiting and trusting. If I had a gun I would not shoot birds, I would go behind a hedge and shoot Captain Coppinger. There would be nothing wrong in that, Ju?"
"Yes there would. It would be a sin."
"Not after he did that to Oliver."
"I would never—never love you, if you did that."
"You would always love me whatever I did," said Jamie. He spoke the truth, Judith knew it. Her eyes filled, she drew the boy to her passionately and kissed his golden head.
Then came Aunt Dionysia and summoned her into her own room. Jamie followed.
"Judith," began Aunt Dunes, in her usual hard tones, and with the same frozen face, "I wish you particularly to understand. Look here! You have caused me annoyance enough while I have been here. Now I shall have a house of my own at S. Austell, and if I chose to live in it I can. If I do not, I can let it, and live at Othello Cottage. I have not made up my mind what to do. Fifteen hundred pounds is a dirty little sum, and not half as much as ought to have been left me for all I had to bear from that old woman. I am glad for one thing that she has left me something, though not much. I should have despaired of her salvation had she not. However her heart was touched at the last, though not touched enough. Now what I want you to understand is this—it entirely depends on your conduct whether after my death this sum of fifteen hundred pounds and a beggarly sum of about five hundred I have of my own, comes to you or not. As long as this nonsense goes on between you and Captain Coppinger—you pretending you are not married, when you are, there is no security for me that you and Jamie may not come tumbling in upon me and become a burden to me. Captain Coppinger will not endure this fooling much longer. He can take advantage of your mistake. He can say—I am not married. Where is the evidence? Produce proof of the marriage having been solemnized—and then he may send you out of his house upon the downs in the cold. What would you be then, eh? All the world holds you to be Mrs. Coppinger. A nice state of affairs, if it wakes up one morning to hear that Mrs. Coppinger has been kicked out of the Glaze, that she never was the wife. What will the world say, eh? What sort of name will the world give you, when you have lived here as his wife."
"That I have not."
"Lived here, gone to balls as his wife when you were not. What will the world call you, eh?"
Judith was silent, holding both her hands, open against her bosom. Jamie beside her, looking up in her face, not understanding what his aunt was saying.
"Very well—or rather very ill!" continued Miss Trevisa. "And then you and this boy here will come to me to take you in, come and saddle yourselves on me, and eat up my little fund. That is what will be the end of it, if you remain in your folly. Go at once to the rector, and put your name where it should have been two months ago, and your position is secure, he cannot drive you away, disgusted at your stubbornness, and you will relieve me of a constant source of uneasiness. It is not that only, but I must care for the good name of Trevisa, which you happen to bear, that that name may not be trailed in the dust. The common sense of the matter is precisely what you cannot see. If you are not Coppinger's wife you should not be here. If you are Coppinger's wife, then your name should be in the register. Now here you have come. You have appeared in public with him. You have but one course open to you, and that is to secure your position and your name and honor. You cannot undo what is done, but you can complete what is done insufficiently. The choice between altenatives is no longer before you. If you had purposed to withdraw from marriage, break off the engagement, then you should not have come on to Pentyre, and remained here. As, however, you did this, there is absolutely nothing else to be done, but to sign the register. Do you hear me?"
"Yes."
"And you will obey?"
"No."
"Pig-headed fool," said Miss Trevisa. "Not one penny will I leave you. That I swear, if you remain obstinate."
"Do not let us say anything more about that, aunt. Now you are going away, is there anything connected with the house you wish me to attend to? That I will do readily."
"Yes, there are several things," growled Miss Trevisa, "and, first of all, are you disposed to do anything, any common little kindness for the man whose bread you eat, whose roof covers you?"
"Yes, aunt."
"Very well, then. Captain Coppinger has his bowl of porridge every morning. I suppose he was accustomed to it before he came into these parts, and he cannot breakfast without it. He says that our Cornish maids cannot make porridge properly, and I have been accustomed to see to it. Either it is lumpy, or it is watery, or it is saltless. Will you see to that?"
"Yes, aunt, willingly."
"You ought to know how to make porridge, as you are more than half Scottish."
"I certainly can make it. Dear papa always liked it."
"Then you will attend to that. If you are too high and too great a lady to put your hand to it yourself, you can see that the cook manages it aright. There is a new girl in now, who is a fool."
"I will make it myself. I will do all I can do."
"Then take the keys. Now that I go, you must be mistress of the house. But for your folly, I might have been from here, and in my own house, or rather in that given me for my use, Othello Cottage. I was to have gone there directly after your marriage, I had furnished it, and made it comfortable, and then you took to your fantastic notions, and hung back, and refused to allow that you were married, and so I had to stick on here two months. Here, take the keys." Miss Trevisa almost flung them at her niece. "Now I have two thousand pounds of my own, and a house at S. Austell, it does not become me to be doing menial service. Take the keys. I will never have them back."
When Miss Trevisa was gone, and Judith was by herself at night, Jamie being asleep, she was able to think over calmly what her aunt had said. She concerned herself not the least, relative to the promise her aunt had made of leaving her two thousand pounds, were she submissive, and her threat of disinheriting her, should she continue recalcitrant, but she did feel that there was truth in her aunt's words when she said that she, Judith, had placed herself in a wrong position—but it was a wrong position into which she had been forced, she had not voluntarily entered it. She had, indeed, consented to become Coppinger's wife, but when she found that Coppinger had employed Jamie to give signals that might mislead a vessel to its ruin she could not go further to meet him. Although he had endeavored to clear himself in her eyes, she did not believe him. She was convinced that he was guilty, though at moments she hoped, and tried to persuade herself that he was not. Then came the matter of the diamonds. There, again, the gravest suspicion rested on him. Again he had endeavored to exculpate himself, yet she could not believe that he was innocent. Till full confidence that he was blameless in these matters was restored, an insuperable wall divided them. Never would she belong to a man who was a wrecker, who belonged to that class of criminals her father had regarded with the utmost horror.
Before she retired to bed, she picked up from under the fender the scrap of paper on which Oliver's message had been written. It had lain there unobserved where Coppinger had flung it, now, as she tidied her room, and arranged the fire-rug, she observed it. She smoothed it out, folded it, and went to her work-box to replace it where it had been before.
She raised the lid, and was about to put the note among some other papers she had there, a letter of her mother's, a piece of her father's writing, some little accounts she had kept, when she was startled to see that the packet of arsenic Mr. Menaida had given her was missing.
She turned out the contents of her work-box. It was nowhere to be found, either there, or in her drawers. Her aunt must have been prying into the box, have found and removed it, so Judith thought, and with this thought appeased her alarm. Perhaps, considering the danger of having arsenic about, Aunt Dionysia had done right in removing it. She had done wrong in doing so without speaking to Judith.