Joan, The Curate/Chapter 19
It was with strangely mixed feelings that Tregenna heard this story of the carrying away of the body of "Jem Bax," the smuggler. Knowing, as he did, that it was a woman who had been thus borne across the water to her last resting-place, and with the memory of that farewell interview strong upon him, he was stirred, in spite of himself, by the thought of that swift and silent passage across the water to the shore; and he seemed to be able to see, as he strained his eyes in the cold morning light, the smugglers' boat with its quiet burden, gliding over the gray sea to the dim line of rocks and foam which marked the edge of the shore.
The sloop had disappeared.
Later in the day the lieutenant went ashore, and lost no time in making his way to the parsonage, as usual.
To his surprise and dismay, he was informed by old Nance, who opened the door to him, that Miss Joan had gone away that very morning.
"Gone away!" repeated Tregenna, in stupefaction. "But whither?"
"That's more'n I can tell you, sir," grumbled Nance, who seemed in an ill-humor, as if resenting her own position of ignorance. "But if you'll step in, maybe the master'll be able to tell you more."
So Tregenna went into the little dining-parlor, where he found the good vicar looking rather gloomy.
"Hey-day!" cried Parson Langney, as soon as the young man entered, "what's this thou hast been about, Harry, to disturb thy sweetheart's peace as thou hast done?"
"I disturb her peace!" exclaimed Tregenna. "Nay, sir, I know not. I parted with her but last night the best of friends, as indeed you very well know, since it was here I passed the evening!"
"Well, she's taken herself away, this morning, to her aunt's at Hastings, and charged me not to tell you how to find the house."
"But, sir, how know you that I am the cause of this freak?"
"Aye freak you may well call it, as indeed I told her myself. But she is as stubborn and as proud as can be on this matter, and all she would say was that no man was worth a thought, save her old father, and she begged me give her a few days away, to collect herself, ere she wrote to tell you you must see her no more!"
The lieutenant, whose limbs were shaking very much, sat down quietly, with his head spinning round. What cause of offense he could have given Joan, to induce her to treat him in this apparently heartless manner, he had not the remotest notion. The parson easily perceived how bewildered he was, and presently he said—
"'Twas after a visit from poor Gardener Tom, who came to the door after breakfast this morning, that she flew into so great a passion. She would not tell me what he said, save that no man was to be trusted by any woman. Does that give you any clue to her behavior?"
"Gardener Tom!" echoed Tregenna, at first without an idea as to any connection between the smuggler's visit and Joan's abrupt departure.
"Had it naught to do with your conduct towards another woman, think you?" suggested Parson Langney, watching him with keen eyes. "It was at the same time that Tom told us of the death of poor Ann Price."
At the mention of the name Tregenna started up.
"What did he tell her about that?" asked he quickly.
"Ah!" said the vicar, with meaning. "Then it had something to do with that, eh?"
"Surely, surely, sir, Joan has too much sense, too much generosity, to be angry with me for showing kindness towards a dying woman!" cried the young man, with fire.
"Nay," said the parson, "I know not. A lass is a strange creature: how far did thy kindness go, Harry?"
Tregenna frowned. It flashed across his mind now that perhaps one of the smugglers' boats had been hovering about the cutter at the time of Ann's death, unnoticed in the excitement and commotion caused by the return of the boats' crews and the capture of a prisoner. If this were so, and if Gardener Tom had been one of the occupants, it was very possible that he had seen the kiss Tregenna had given the dying woman, and that he had recounted the incidents of that passionate farewell of hers to Joan.
Since Tom was jealous himself, it was not likely that he would let the story lose in the telling. This seemed the only possible explanation of Joan's strange flight, and it was a most disquieting one.
"'Tis true I did kiss her, sir, at her request," said Tregenna, after a short pause. "But there was never a kiss given in this world that was less cause for jealousy!"
"Well, I believe you, Harry, for I know you to be most truly attached to my daughter. But whether she will believe, is another question. A woman looks not at these things with a man's eyes, nor does she listen to the recital of them with a man's ears."
"Sir," said Tregenna, proudly, "I hope she will come round to a sensible state within a few days, and send me some message to say so. For otherwise I will not humble myself to write and demand one. I could not trust the discretion of a woman who would show so little confidence in her lover!"
"Nay, let not your spirit carry you too far, or maybe you'll lose her altogether!" said the vicar. "And I would not have that; for though I would fain have kept my daughter with me a little longer, had it been possible, I should not hope to find for her an honester man than I believe you to be!"
"'Twill be the cruelest loss I have ever known, if I do lose her," answered Tregenna, with emotion. "But yet I shall have no choice if she is so hard as to let me go without one word!"
"You will not take with you the name of the house where her aunt resides?" suggested Parson Langney, wistfully.
"No, sir. Let her send me a message, or I will not go to her!" retorted Tregenna. "I intrude, sir. You are engaged upon your sermon, I see. Let me wish you a good day!"
And with a bow, and an air of great spirit, the young man left the house.
Hard though it was to be stern and constant to his determination, Tregenna kept his word. He did not call again at the Parsonage, nor did he attempt to find out the address of Joan's aunt. But he did certainly wander pretty frequently, in the course of the next few days, both in the direction of Hurst and of the town of Hastings, not without a secret hope that he would meet his offended sweetheart.
He felt that he had a right to consider himself aggrieved, since she was condemning him unheard. But at the same time, his glances towards the Parsonage grew more and more wistful as the days went by, and he still received no letter, no message. Had the vindictive and merciless Ann done him an injury in death greater than any she had tried to do him in life? It seemed so; and the lieutenant, though he assumed a more and more jaunty air as the time passed, hid a heart of lead underneath.
It was on the fourth day after the morning, when Ann's body had been so mysteriously conveyed away, nobody knew whither, that Tregenna, on arriving at the village one morning, found the inhabitants all astir with some great excitement. They were congregating in groups about one particular cottage in the village; and on inquiry as to the reason, he learnt that it was the day of Ann Price's funeral and that they were waiting for the body to be brought out.
Tregenna lingered, on hearing this, and hoped that he might have an opportunity of meeting Tom, and of questioning him as to the mischief he had done.
When the coffin, covered with a deep black pall, was brought out of the house, however, the lieutenant found no one he recognized among the four bearers.
They were all rough-looking men, of the rather sinister type he had begun to know so well, but neither Bill Plunder, nor Robin Cursemother, Ben the Blast, Jack Price, nor Gardener Tom, was among them.
"How comes it her brother is not one of the bearers?" asked he of a bystander.
"Sure, sir, 'tis you should know the reason of that better than anybody," returned the woman, saucily.
For the person of the lieutenant was now well known in the neighborhood, and there was a sort of lively warfare carried on between him on the one side, and the women of the place, with their free-trading sympathies, on the other.
By this time the little procession had started towards the churchyard, and Tregenna, bare-headed, joined it on its way.
Slowly they went, past the few remaining houses of the village, and up the hill where the Parsonage stood. The church, a weather-beaten little structure, innocent of any sort of restoration except whitewash, stood beyond, on a somewhat lower level, and nearer to the marsh.
Under the building, at the east end of the church, there was a vault, which had belonged to the family at Rede Hall for nearly a century. The way to it was by a flight of worn steps, damp, uneven and overgrown with weeds, behind the east window.
Here the vicar stood, with the great key of the vault in his hand, waiting for the arrival of the solemn little procession.
Very weird, very awe-inspiring it seemed to Tregenna—the brief service held in the keen frosty air, under the lee of the old church, whose stones had been gray and old before the ancient Faith gave place to the new. There was a dead calm that day over land and sea, and the sea-birds flew inland, screaming, over the brown fields.
A strange contrast all the calm, the peace seemed to make, to the image of fire and passion, restless energy and feverish struggle which was called up by the name of Ann.
When the service was over, and the coffin had been locked away in the great bare vault, Tregenna left the rest of the company, and took a straight cut across the cliffs towards the Hastings road.
It was with no definite object of going in the direction of Joan's present residence, yet there was doubtless some thought of her hovering in his mind; so that when, at a distance of some mile and a half from Hurst, he came suddenly face to face with her at a turning in the road, he flushed indeed, but without much surprise, as if the person who had been in his thoughts had become on the instant present to him in the flesh.
She was in the company of a stout country lass, who was carrying a parcel under her cloak.
Tregenna bowed, but, except for the space of half a second, did not stop. And in return for the slightly resentful, cold and distant courtsey she gave him, he held his head very high in the air, and looked her full in the face with a defiant expression.
Perceiving this, Joan went suddenly white; and as he went on, she presently halted, and turned to look after him. Now, it happened that Tregenna, although he had made up his mind that he would not be guilty of such a weakness, did in his turn stop and give a hasty glance back at her.
Joan, seeing that he instantly went on again, could bear it no longer; he should not go like that, without knowing how little she cared. So she hastily bade her companion walk on, saying that she would overtake her shortly; and then she called, in a haughty and distant tone—
"Mr. Tregenna!"
And of course he had not gone far enough not to hear her.
He turned, however, in the most leisurely way possible, and walked back with a very lofty air of doing something he was much disinclined to do.
"Madam," said he, when he had come quite near, "you called to me, I believe."
"I did, sir," said Joan, in a tone as lofty as his own. "I did but wish to ask you—whether the stage-wagon has passed this way."
"I have not seen it, madam," replied he, more superbly than ever.
"I thank you, sir."
She dropped him a stately, dignified curtsey, to which he responded with a profound bow. Then he turned again and resumed his walk. This was more than Joan could bear.
"How can you, Harry?" burst from her lips.
"Nay, 'tis I should ask that!" retorted Tregenna, who was back again by her side in a moment. "'Tis I should want to know how a woman can treat her lover as you have treated me this last five days!"
"They told me—they told me" stammered Joan, who was now in tears.
He interrupted her quickly.
"Nay, then, if you are content to quarrel with me on account of what others tell you, without a word to me, 'tis time we should bid each other farewell, madam!"
"Oh, Harry, you are too hard, too cruel! And when 'tis your fault, all your fault! For Tom saw you with—with—her in your arms! You kissed her, once, twice, thri-i-i-ce! And—and when you told me you cared not for her! Nay, sir!" She drew herself erect, and looked at him with a challenge in her eyes.
"Deny it if you can. You know you dare not, you cannot!"
"Most certainly I do not deny that I held Ann Price in my arms, nor that I did kiss her, as you say. And, if you hold that I did wrongly in suffering the caprice of a dying woman, why, madam, I must tell you that 'tis you that err, not I."
"But—but—but she had sworn you should kiss her!" whimpered Joan, falteringly. "Gardener Tom told me so."
"Madam, could I help that? She was sick to death, as you know. Whether 'twas for affection, which I doubt, or for spite, or for some other motive, I could do naught but that which I did. I will neither deny the action, nor excuse myself for it: since there was naught to be done but humor her."
Joan looked at him through her tears; but although she still endeavored to maintain her cold and haughty demeanor, it was plain both that she was longing to find some way of getting out of the position she had taken up, and that she was rejoiced at seeing her lover again. Tregenna, on his side, was just as feverishly happy in this meeting as she, and just as eager to go on with the quarrel, if that were the only way of holding converse with her.
She uttered another sob.
"I thought you cared for me!" sighed she.
"Madam, I thought I did also."
"But I see plainly you do not!"
"Nay, madam, then your eyes are keen to see the thing which is not!"
"If—if you cared for me, you would have been to visit me—while I was at my aunt's!"
"If you had cared for me, you would not have gone away!"
"Then this is to be farewell indeed, sir?"
"If such is your pleasure, madam!"
"Oh, Harry, you are too, too cruel!"
"And you," whispered Tregenna, his tone suddenly melting to tenderness, as he seized her in his arms, "are too foolish, my dear! Come, dry your eyes and confess that never had a maiden so little cause to doubt her lover as you! Oh, Joan, Joan, and I thought you were so wise, so sober-minded a person! I never guessed you were subject to caprices, like other women! I'm disappointed in you, Joan."
"Will you swear," said Joan, in a tremulous voice, "you had never any thoughts of love for her, but only for me?"
"I will swear it again, as I have sworn before. But you should not doubt me, Joan!"
She was looking rather ashamed of herself, and it was easy to see that it would be no difficult matter to convince her of his truth.
"'Twas only," said she meekly, "that all men say she was so resistless a creature—that no man could stand against her wiles. But I'll be content, so you assure me with your own lips you loved her not, but were kind to her out of pity!"
Tregenna did give her assurance with his lips, in very impressive fashion. And they walked back together to Hurst, where Parson Langney, espying them from his gate while they were yet at some distance, greeted them with derisive roars of laughter.
"Nay, nay," said he. "What a flighty, way-ward creature is a lover, male or female! If sober married folk did fly off at a tangent like to sweethearts in their courting, there would be never a household on the earth with both master and mistress within its doors at the same time!"
"Wherefore are you not busy with your sermon, father?" asked Joan, saucily, to turn the conversation and draw attention from her guilty blushes.
"'Tis too early in the week," retorted the vicar, with a twinkle of his merry eyes. "I was going to the churchyard to look for the key of the vault I opened this morning. I know not how I can have mislaid it."
They accompanied him on his search, but their efforts were in vain; and at last Tregenna suggested that the key might have been stolen.
"Nay, but who should steal the key of a burial vault?" objected the vicar, incredulously. "'Tis the last thing a man would covet, I imagine."
But though Tregenna did not press the point, the notion he had suggested did not leave his mind. And even after he had had tea with Joan and her father, and had started on his way back to his vessel, it recurred to him again and again.
So that at last he stopped short, turned back, and made his way once more to the churchyard.