A PIECE OF MONEY AND A SONG.
“Tis but a Judas coin, though it be gold;
The price of love forsworn, ’tis full of fears
And griefs for those who dare to hold;
And leaves a stain, only washed clean with tears.”
“Behold and listen while the fair
Breaks in sweet sounds the willing air;
She raised her voice so high, and sang so clear,
At every close she made the attending throng
Replied, and bore the burthen of the song;
So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note,
It seemed the music melted in the throat.”
––Dryden.
The piece of money left by Pyn might have been a curse; no one would touch it. While the women stood in groups talking of poor John Penelles and Denas, the men held an informal meeting around the table on which it lay.
“This be the communion table,” said Jacob Trenager; “some one ought to take the money off it. And I think it be best to carry the gold to the superintendent; he will tell us what to do with it;” and, after some objections, Jacob took charge of the sinful coin, and the next morning he went up the cliff to St. Penfer with it.
The preacher heard the story with an intense interest. “Jacob,” he answered, “I suppose there be none so poor in your village as to feel it might do them good?”
“Man, nor woman, nor child, would buy a loaf with it, sir; none of us men would let them. If Denas Penelles have gone out of the way, sir, she be a fisher’s daughter, and the man and the money that beguiled her be hateful to all of us.”
“Your chapel––is it not very poor?”
“Not poor enough to take the devil’s coin, sir.”
“Well, Jacob, I cannot say that I feel any more disposed to use it than you do. We know it was the wage of sin, and neither the service of God nor the poor will be the better for it. I think we will give it back to the young man. It may help to show him how his fellows regard the thing he did.”
“That be the best way of all, sir. But he be in London, and hard to find no doubt.”
“I will take it to his sister. I do not hold her quite guiltless.”
So Jacob threw the sovereign on the preacher’s desk, and it lay on the green baize, a yellow, evil-looking thing. For men love to make their thoughts palpable to their senses, and this bit of gold was visible sin––part of the price of a desolated home.
It was singular to see this same personification troubling the educated preacher as well as the unlearned fisherman. The Rev. William Farrar, when left alone with the unwelcome coin, looked askance at it. He did not like to see it on his desk, he had a repugnance to touch it. Then he forced himself to lift the sovereign, and by an elaborate fingering of the coin convince his intellect that he had no foolish superstition on the subject. Anon he took out his purse for its safe keeping, but suddenly, after a moment’s hesitation, he snapped the clasp tight, and threw the bit of money on the chimney-piece. For a momentary flash of thought had brought vividly before him the sinful Babylonish garment which troubled the camp of Israel. Perhaps that sinful money might be equally malign to his own household.
He had resolved to take it to Mrs. Burrell in the afternoon, for the morning was his time for study and writing. But he found it impossible to think of his sermon. That sovereign on the mantelpiece was in all his thoughts. His back was to it, and yet he saw the dull shining disc. In spite of his reason and his faith, in spite of a very strong will and of a practiced command over himself, he felt the presence of the rejected coin to be a weight and an influence he could not pretend to ignore.
So he resolved to leave every other duty and go to Burrell Court, though it was a long walk, and the thick misty Cornish rain had begun to fall. Indeed, there was nothing but a vapourish shroud, a dim, grey chaos, as far as his eye could reach. The strip of road on which he trod was apparently the only land left to tread on––all the rest of creation had disappeared in a spectral mist. But above the mist the lark was singing joyously, singing for the song’s sake, and the melody went down into his heart and preached him a better sermon than he was ever likely to write.
Listening to it, he reached, before he was aware, the great gates of the Court. Mrs. Burrell was at home, and he sent a request for an interview. Elizabeth instantly suspected that he had come on some affair relating to that wretched business. She was in trouble enough about it, but she was also proud and reticent, and not inclined to discuss Roland with a stranger.
Quite intentionally she gave to her manner a good deal of that haughtiness which young wives think dignity, but which is in reality the offensive freshness of new-made honour. The preacher offered her his hand, but she did not see it, being fully occupied in arranging the long train of cashmere, silk, and lace which, in those days, made morning dresses a misnomer.
“I am the Wesleyan preacher from St. Penfer, Mrs. Burrell.”
“Can I do anything for you, sir? though really, if yours is a charitable visit, I must remind you that my own church looks to me for all I can possibly afford.”
“I do not come, Mrs. Burrell, to ask for money. I bring you this sovereign, which belongs to Mr. Roland Tresham.”
The gold fell from his fingers, spun round a few times, and, dropping upon the polished mahogany table, made a distinct clink.
“I do not understand you, Mr. Farrar.”
The preacher hastened to make the circumstance more intelligible. He related the scene at the St. Clair chapel with a dramatic force that sprang from intense feeling, and Elizabeth listened to his solemn words with angry uneasiness. Yet she made an effort to treat the affair with unconcern.
“What have I to do with the sovereign, sir?” she asked. “I am not responsible for Mr. Tresham’s acts. I did my best to prevent the disgrace that has befallen the fisherman’s daughter.”
“I think you are to blame in a great measure.”
“Sir!”
“Yes. I am sure you are. You made a companion of the girl––I may say a friend.”
“No, sir, not a friend. She was not my equal in any respect.”
“Say a companion then. You taught her how to dress, how to converse, how to carry herself above her own class. You permitted her to wander about the garden with your brother.”
“I always watched them.”
“You let her talk to him––you let her sing with him.”
“Never but when I was present. From the first I told her what Roland was––told her to mind nothing at all he said.”
“If you had put a glass of cold water before a man dying of thirst, would you have been justified in telling him not to drink? You might even have added that the water contained poison; all the same, he would have drunk it, and your blame it would be for putting it within his reach.”
“Indeed, Mr. Farrar, I will not take the blame of the creature’s wickedness. It is a strange thing to be told that educating a girl and trying to lift her a step or two higher is a sin.”
“It is a sin, madam, unless you persevere in it. God does not permit the rich, for their own temporary glory or convenience, to make experiments with an immortal soul, and then abandon it like a soiled glove or a game of which they have grown weary. What you began you ought in common justice to have carried on to such perfection as was possible. No circumstances could justify you in beguiling a girl from her natural protectors and then leaving her in the midst of danger alone.”
“Sir, this is my affair, not yours. I beg leave to say that you know nothing whatever of the circumstances.”
“Indeed, I know a great deal about them, and I can reasonably deduce a great deal more.”
“And pray, sir, what do you deduce?”
“The right of Denas Penelles to have been retained as your companion. Having made a certain refinement of life necessary to her, you ought in common justice to have supplied the want you created.”
“All this trouble arose when I was on my wedding-trip.”
“I think you ought to have taken her with you.”
“Sir!”
“I think so. It was hard to be suddenly deprived of every social pleasure and refinement and sent back to a fisher’s cottage to cure fish, and knot nets, and knit fishing-shirts. How could you have borne it?”
“Mr. Farrar, such a comparison is an insult.”
“I mean no insult; far from it. Even my office would give me no right to insult you. I only wish to awaken your conscience. Even yet it may take up your abandoned duty.”
“Perhaps you do not know that I endeavoured last week to see Denas. I wrote to her. I asked her to come and see me. I told her I wanted to talk with her about Mr. Tresham. She did not even answer my letter. I consider myself clear of the ungrateful girl––and as I am busy this morning I will be obliged to you, sir, to excuse my further attendance. Take the sovereign with you; give it to the poor.”
“God will feed His poor, madam.”
She made a little scornful laugh and asked: “Do you really inquire into the character of all the money your church receives?”
“No further, madam, than you inquire into the character of the visitors you receive. Plenty of thieves and seducers are in every society, but it is not until a man is publicly known to be a thief or a seducer that we are justified in refusing him a courteous reception. A great deal of money is the wages of sin, and it passes through our hands and we are not stained by its contact; but if I give you a piece of gold and say, ‘It is the price of a slain soul, or a slain body, or a slain reputation,’ would you like to put it in your purse, or buy bread for your children with it, or take it to church and offer it to God? I wish you good-morning, Mrs. Burrell.”
And Elizabeth bowed and stood watching him until the door was closed and she was alone with the coin. It offended her. It had been the cause of a most humiliating visit. She looked at it with scorn and loathing. A servant entered with a card; she took it eagerly, and pointing to the money said, “Carry it to Mr. Tresham’s room and lay it upon the dressing-table.” She was grateful to get it out of her sight, and very glad indeed to see the visitor who had given her such a prompt opportunity for ridding her eyes of its gleaming presence.
Thus it is that not only present but absent personalities rule us. In St. Penfer, Paul Pyn and Ann Bude, John and Joan Penelles, the Rev. Mr. Farrar and Mrs. Burrell, were all that morning governed in some degree by Roland’s evilly spent sovereign; and he far off in London was in the hey-day of his honeymoon with Denas. They were so gay, so thoughtless and happy that people turned to look at them as they wandered through the bazars or stood laughing before the splendid windows in Regent Street. Many an old man and woman smiled sympathetically at them; for all the world loves a lover, and none could tell that these lovers had forfeited their right to sympathy by stealing their pleasure from those who ought to have shared it with them.
But as yet the world was only an accident of their love, and there was a whole week before them of unbroken and unsatiated delight––a whole week in which neither of them thought of the past or the future; in which every hour brought a fresh pleasure, something new to wear, or to see, or to hear. If it could only have lasted! Alas! the ability to enjoy went first. Amusements of every kind grew a little––a very little––tiresome. The first glory was dimmed; the charm of freshness was duller; the unreasoning delight of ignorance a little less enthusiastic every day; and about the close of the third week Roland said one morning, “You look weary, Denasia, my darling.”
“I am tired, Roland––tired of going a-pleasuring. I never thought anything like that could possibly happen. Ought I not to be taking lessons, learning something, doing something about my voice?”
“It is high time, love. Money melts in London like ice in summer. Suppose we go and see Signor Maria this morning.”
“I would like to go very much.”
“Then make yourself very fine and very pretty, and let me hear if your voice is in good order to-day.” He went to the piano and struck a few chords, and throughout the still, decorous house, people in every room heard the sweet voice chanting:
“I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men––the sea”––
heard it again in the weird, startling incantation:
“Weave me the nets for the gray, gray fish”––
and up and down stairs doors were softly opened, and through every heart there went a breath of the salt sea and a longing for the wide stretches of rippled sands and tossing blue waters.
Roland perceived the effect of the music and was satisfied. He had no fear of their future. What if the gold was low in his purse? That charmful voice was an unfailing bank from which to draw more. He was so proud of his darling, so full of praises and admiration, that Denas really put on an access of genius as she robed herself to his flattering words. Pleasure, and hope, and a pretty pride in her husband’s eulogies lent her new physical graces. She was conscious that there were eyes at every window watching Roland and herself leave the house, and she felt certain that their owners were saying: “What a handsome couple! How fond they are of each other! What a wonderful voice she has!”
It is easy to be gay, and even beautiful, to such thoughts; and Roland and Denas reached Signor Maria’s in a glow of good-humour and good hope. The Signor was at home and ready to receive them. He was a small, thin, dark man with long, curling black hair and bright black eyes. He bowed to Roland and looked with marked interest into the fair, sparkling face of Denas. He was much pleased with her appearance and quite interested in her ambitions. Then he opened the piano and said, “Will monsieur play, or madame?”
Roland played and Denas sang her very best. The Signor listened attentively, and Roland was sure of an enthusiastic verdict; on the contrary, it was one of depressing qualifications. The Signor acknowledged the quality of the voice, its charmful, haunting tones––but for the opera! oh, much more––very, very much more was needed. Madame must go to Italy for three years and study. She must learn the Italian language; the French; the German. Ah! then there was the acting also! Had madame histrionic power? That was indispensable for the grand opera. But in three years––perhaps four––with fine teachers her voice might be very rich, very charming. Now it was harsh, crude, unformed. Yes, it wanted the soft, mellowing airs of Italy. Where had madame been living––what was called “brought up?”
Denas answered she had always lived by the sea, and the Signor nodded intelligently and said: “Yes! yes! that was what he heard in her voice; the fresh wild winds––yes, wild and salt! It is airs from the rose gardens, velvety languors off the vineyards, heat and passions of the sunshine madame wants. Indeed, monsieur may take madame to Italy for two, three, perhaps four years, and then expect her to sing. Yes, then, even in grand opera.”
This was undoubtedly the Signor’s honest opinion, but Roland and Denas were greatly depressed by it; Denas especially so, for she had an inward conviction that he was right; she had heard the truth. It was almost two different beings that left Signor Maria’s house. Silently Roland handed Denas into the waiting cab, silently he seated himself beside her.
“I am afraid I have disappointed you, Roland.”
“Yes, a little. But we are going now to Mr. Harrison’s. There is nothing foreign about him. He is English, and he knows what English people like. I shall wait for his verdict, Denas.”
“It was a long ride to Mr. Harrison’s, and Roland did not speak until they were at his door. This professor was a blond, effusive, large man of enthusiastic temperament. He was delighted to listen to Mrs. Tresham, and he saw possibilities for her that Signor Maria never would have contemplated; though when Roland told him what Maria had said he endorsed his opinion so far as to admit the excellence of such a training for a great prima donna.
“But Mrs. Tresham may learn just as well by experience as by method,” he averred. “She sings as the people enjoy singing. She sings their songs. She has a powerful voice, which will grow stronger with use. I think Mr. Willis will give her an immediate engagement. Suppose we go and see. Willis is at the hall, I should say, about this time.”
This seemed a practical and flattering offer, and Roland gladly accepted it. Willis Hall was soon reached. It was used only for popular concerts and very slight dramas in which there was a great deal of singing and dancing. It had a well-appointed stage and scenery, but the arrangement of the seats showed a general democracy and a great freedom of movement for the audience.
“Willis is always on the lookout for novelties,” said Professor Harrison, “and I am sure these fishing songs will ‘fetch’ such an audience as he has.”
As he was speaking Mr. Willis approached. He listened to Professor Harrison’s opinion and kept his eyes on Denas while he did so. He thought her appearance taking, and was pleased to give her voice a trial. The hall was empty and very dull, but a piano was pulled forward to the front of the stage and Roland took his seat before it. Denas was told to step to the front and sing to the two gentlemen in the gallery. They applauded her first song enthusiastically, and Denas sang each one better. But it was not their applause she listened to––it was the soft praises of Roland, his assurances of her success, which stimulated her even beyond her natural power.
At the conclusion of the trial Mr. Willis offered Denas twelve pounds a week, and if she proved a favourite the sum was to be gradually increased. The sum, though but a pittance of Roland’s dreams, was at least a livelihood and an earnest of advance, and it was readily accepted. Then the little company sat down upon the empty stage and discussed the special songs and costumes in which Denas was to make her début.
Never before in all his life had Roland found business so interesting. He said to Denas, as they talked over the affair at their own fireside, that he thought he also had found his vocation. He felt at home on the stage. He never had felt at home in a bank or in a business office. He was determined to study, and create a few great characters, and become an actor. He felt the power; it was in him, he said complacently. “Now,” he added, “Denas, if you become a great singer and I a great actor, we shall have the world at our feet. And I like actors and those kind of people. I feel at home with them. I like the life they lead––the jolly, come-day go-day, wandering kind of life. I never was meant for a respectable man of business. No: the stage! the stage! That is my real life. I am certain of it. I wonder I never thought of it before.”
It had been arranged that Denas was to open with Neil Gow’s matchless song of “Caller Herrin’!” and her dress was of course that of an idealized Newhaven fisher-girl. Her short, many-coloured skirts, her trig latched shoon, her open throat, and beautiful bare arms lifted to the basket upon her head was a costume which suited her to admiration. When she came stepping down the stage to the immortal notes, and her voice thrilled the house with the ringing musical “cry” that none hear and ever forget:
the assembly broke into rapturous delight. It was a song not above their comprehension and their feeling. It was interpreted by one to whom the interpretation was as natural as breathing. She was recalled again, and again, and again, and the uproar of approval only ceased when the next singer advanced with a roll of music in his hand. He was a pale, sentimental young man whose forte was despairing love-songs, but
“The last links are broken
That bound me to thee”
had little interest after Mademoiselle Denasia’s unique melody. For it was by this name Denas had consented to be known, the French prefix having but a very indefinite significance to her mind. Roland had told her that it meant a lady, and that all singers were either mademoiselle or madame, and that she was too young for madame, and the explanation had been satisfactory.
Certainly, if signs could be trusted Mademoiselle Denasia was likely to be a name in many mouths; for her second and third songs were even more startling in their success than “Caller Herrin’,” and Mr. Willis would permit no further recalls.
“We must give them Denasia in small doses,” he said, laughing; “she is too precious to make common,” and Roland winced a moment at the familiar tone in which his wife’s name was spoken. But both alike were under a spell. The intoxicating cup of public applause was at their lips. Their brains were full of the wildest dreams, their hearts full of the wildest hopes. No consideration at that time could have turned their feet aside from the flower-covered, treacherous path they were so gayly treading.
Such a life would have simply been beyond the power of John and Joan Penelles to imagine. Its riot of dress and emotions and its sinful extravagance in every direction would have been to them an astounding revelation of the possibilities of life. As it was, their anxiety took mainly one direction: the uncertainty attending the marriage of their daughter. Denas had indeed said she was Roland’s wife, but the St. Penfer News implied a very different relationship; and John had all that superstitious belief in a newspaper which is so often an attribute of ignorance.
At any rate, the want of authentic data about the marriage humiliated and made him miserable. Two more weeks had passed since that eventful Sunday night service at St. Clair, and yet John had no assurance of a more certain character to rely on. Three or four illustrated papers had been received with “love from your daughter, Denas Tresham,” written on the title-page; but the claim thus made satisfied no one but Joan. Joan believed in the validity of the name, and handed around the sheets with a confidence few cared to in any degree dispute.
The third Sunday was an important one to the fisher-folk. There was to be a missionary sermon preached in the St. Clair chapel, and John and Joan went there. The chapel was crowded. Joan got a seat, but John lingered in the small vestibule within the door among the few brethren waiting for the strange preacher. It was the same person who had married Roland and Denas, and after he had shaken himself free from his dripping cloak he looked at the men around him, and his eyes fell upon John. And probably all the circumstances of that marriage were either well known or accurately divined, for he took the big fisherman by the hand and said cheerfully:
“John Penelles, I am glad, very glad indeed to meet you. I suppose you know that it was I who married your daughter?”
If a fixed star had fallen at John’s feet he could not have been more amazed. His large face lightened from within, he clasped firmly the preacher’s hand, but was so slow in forcing speech from his swelling heart that the preacher continued:
“Yes, they came to me, and I remembered your pretty child. I tied them true and fast, you may be sure of that, John.”
“Where, sir?”
“In Plymouth Wesleyan chapel, to be sure.”
“Thank God! Thank you too, sir! You might say so––some people here be slow to believe, sir, and it be breaking my heart, it be indeed, sir.”
There was only a nod and smile in reply, but John was extremely happy. He tried to get near to Joan and tell her; but the aisles were full and the service was beginning. John held his own service, and the singing, and the prayer, and preaching were just a joyful accompaniment to the thanksgiving in his heart. At length the service was over, and the preacher lifted a number of slips of paper and began to read aloud the announcements made on them. Missionary meetings, tea meetings for missions, a bazaar at St. Penfer for missions, a Bible meeting, a class meeting, and the service for that evening. Then, while the congregation were still expectant, he said in a clear, pleasant voice:
“I am requested also to say that on December the 17th, on Tuesday morning at nine o’clock, I united in the holy bands of marriage Denasia, the daughter of John Penelles, fisher of St. Penfer, to Roland Tresham, gentleman of that place. The ceremony was performed by me in the Wesleyan chapel at Plymouth; myself, my wife, and two daughters being witnesses to it. We will now sing the 444th hymn:
“‘Lord over all, if Thou hast made,
Hast ransomed every soul of man.’”
And all the congregation rose, and in the rising the conscious glance that passed through the chapel was lost in a more general purpose. It was presumed, at least, that everyone was singing a prayer for the heathen. Only Joan Penelles made no effort to think of India or Africa. Her face, full of radiant assurance, looked confidently over the crowd, seeking her husband’s mutual glance of pleasure. Her faith had been justified. Her girl was an honourable wife––the wife of a gentleman well known to all. She had no longer any need to hide the wounding look or doubtful word in a protesting attitude, as painful to her as it was offensive to others.
Well, it is a very hard thing to rejoice with those that do rejoice; evidently in that little chapel it was easier for the worshippers to be sorry for the heathen than to be glad for their brother and sister Penelles. Never had John and Joan felt themselves so far away from the sympathy of their fellows. Only a few rough men who handled the nets with John, and who knew how hard the duty had been to him since his little girl went away, said a word of congratulation. But one and another of these, as they passed John and Joan on their way home, said a hearty “Praise God, brother John,” or a “God bless you both, ’twas good news for you this morning.” But, with or without sympathy, the happy father and mother walked to their house that day up-head and bravely. Their hearts had been miraculously lightened, and it was not until the burden had rolled away that they knew how woefully heavy it had been.
The next afternoon, when the wind was blowing inland too fiercely to permit boats to leave the harbour, a man who had been up the cliff brought back with him a letter for the Penelles. It was evidently from Denas. John looked at the postmark, “London,” and turned it around and around till Joan was nervous. “Aw, then, John, do open it, and read what be inside––do, my dear!” And John read:
“Dear Father and Mother:––I have been intending to write to you every day, but I have been so happy that the days went away like a dream. I wish you knew my dear Roland as I do. He is the kindest of men, the most generous, the dearest in the whole world. He does nothing but try how to give me pleasure. He has bought me such lovely dresses, and rings, and bracelets, and he takes me everywhere. I never, never did think life could be so happy. I am going to have lessons too. I am to be taught how to sing and to do other things right, and your little Denas is the very happiest girl in the world. London is such a grand place, the very streets are all shows. Your loving daughter,
“Denas Tresham.
“P. S.––Perhaps you may wonder where we were married. It was at Plymouth, by the Wesleyan preacher. Father knows him, I think. D. T.”
A dead silence followed the reading of the letter. Joan sat upright with a troubled face. She had been washing the dinner dishes; the towel lay across her lap, and her fingers pleated and unpleated the bit of coarse linen. John laid his arms across his knees and dropped a stern face toward them. The bit of white paper was in his big brown fingers. He did not speak a word; his heart was full, his eyes were full, his tongue was heavy and dumb. Joan grew restless and hot with anger, for she was wounded in every sense.
“Aw, my dear, she be so happy with that man she do forget the days she was happy with you and me, John. She do forget all and everything. Aw, then, ’tis a cruel, thoughtless letter. Cruel beyond words to tell––dreadful! aw, dreadful! God help us! And I do wish I could forget her! And I do be sorry she was ever born.”
“Whist! whist! my old dear. She has gone into the wilderness. Our one little ewe lamb has gone into the wilderness, and aw, my dear, ’twill keep us busy all night and day to send love and prayer enough after her. There be wolves there, Joan; wolves, my dear, ready to devour––and the man she loves, he be one of them. Poor little Denas!”
Then Joan went on with her housework, but John sat silent, bending down toward the letter. And by and by his white face glowed with a dull red colour, and he tore the letter up, tore it very slowly into narrow ribbon-like strips, and let them fall, one by one, at his feet. He was in a mood Joan did not care to trouble. It reminded her of the day when he had felled Jacob Trenager. She was glad to see him rise and go to the inner room, glad to hear that he bolted the door after him. For in that temper it was better that John should complain to God than talk with any human being.