Joan sighed and smiled, and Penelles, with his pipe in his mouth, turned his face landward. Joan thought a moment and then called to him:
“Father! Paul Tynton is very bad to-day. He 15 was taken ill when the moon was three days old; men die who sicken on that day. Hadn’t you better call and speak a word with him? He is in your class, you know.”
“He was taken when the moon was four days old; he’ll have a hard little time, but he’ll get up again.”
There was nothing else she could think of, and she knit her brows and turned in to her house duties. Joan did not want any meeting between her husband and Roland Tresham. She did not want anything to occur which would interfere with Denas visiting Miss Tresham, for these visits were a source of great pleasure to Denas and great pride to herself. And Joan could not believe that there was any danger to be feared from Roland; Denas had known him for two years and nothing evil had yet happened. If Roland had said one wrong word to Denas, Joan was sure her child would have told her.
While she was thinking of these things, John Penelles went slowly up the winding path that led to the top of the cliff. It was sweet and bright on either hand with the fragile, delicate flowers of early spring. He stopped frequently to look at them, and he longed to touch them, to hold them in his palm, to put them against his lips. But he looked at his big, hard hands, and then at the flowers, and so, shaking his head, walked on. The blackbird was piping and the missel-thrush singing in one or two of her seven languages, and John felt the spring joy stirring in his own heart to melody. He sat in the singing-pew at St. Penfer Chapel, and he had a noble voice, so he shook the ashes out of his pipe, 16 and clasping his hands behind his back was just going to give the blackbirds and thrushes his evening song, when he heard the rippling laugh of Denas a little ahead of him.
He told himself in a moment that it was not her usual laugh. He could not for his life have defined the difference, but there it was. Before he saw her he knew that Roland Tresham was with her, and in a moment or two they came suddenly within his vision. Denas was walking a little straighter than usual, and Roland was bending toward her. He was gay, laughing, finely dressed; he was doing his best to attract the girl who walked so proudly, so apart, and yet so happily beside him. Penelles went forward to meet them. As they approached Denas smiled, and the young man called out:
“Hello, Penelles! How do you do? And what’s the news? And how is the fishing? I was just bringing Denas home––and hoping to see you.”
“Aw, then, sir, you can see for yourself how I be, and the news be none, and the fishing be plenty.”
“St. Penfer harbour is not much of a place, Penelles. I was just telling Denas about London.”
“St. Penfer be a hard little place, but it do give us a living, sir; a honest living, thank God! Come, Denas, my dear.”
As he spoke he gently took the girl’s hand, and with a perfectly civil “Good-evening, sir,” turned with her homeward.
“Too fast, Penelles; I am going with you.”
“Much obliged; not to-night, sir. It be getting late. Say good-evening, Denas.”
17
There was something so final about the man’s manner that Roland was compelled to accept the dismissal, but it deeply offended him, and the unreasonable anger opened the door for evil thoughts; and evil thoughts––having a cursed and powerful vitality––immediately began to take form and to make plans for their active gratification. Denas walked silently down the narrow path before her father. He could see by the way she carried herself and by the swing of the little basket in her hand that she was vexed, and he had a sense of injustice in her attitude which he could not define, but which wounded his great loving heart deeply. At last they reached the shingle, and he strode to her side.
“You be in a great hurry now, Denas,” he said.
“I want to speak to my mother.”
“What is it, dear? Father will do as well.”
“No, he won’t. Father is cruel cross to-night, and thinking wrong of his girl and wrong of others who meant no wrong.”
“Then I be sorry enough, Denas. Come, my dear, we won’t quarrel for a bad man like Roland Tresham.”
“He isn’t bad, father.”
“He is cruel bad––worse than an innocent girl can know. Aw, my dear, you must take father’s word for it. How was he walking with you to-night? ’Twas some devil’s miracle, I’ll warrant.”
“No, then, it was not. He came from London on the afternoon train, and Miss Tresham had a bad headache and could not set me home as she always does.”
18
“You should have come home alone. There was nothing to fear you.”
“ ’Tis the first time.”
“And, my dear, ’tis the last time. Mind that! ’Twill be a bad hour for Roland Tresham if I see him making love to my girl again.”
“He didn’t say a word of love to me, father.”
“Aw, then, he was looking it––more shame to him, not to give looks words.”
“Cannot a man look at a pretty girl? I call that nonsense, father.”
“Roland Tresham can’t look at you, Denas, any more as I saw him looking at you to-night––bold and free, and sure and laughing to his own heart for the clever he was, and the devil in his eyes and on his tongue. ’Twas all wrong, my dear, or I wouldn’t be feeling so hot and angry about it. I wouldn’t be feeling as if my heart was cut loose from its moorings and sinking down and down as deep as fear can send it.”
“You might trust me, father.”
“Aw, my sweet girl, there’s times an angel can’t be trusted, or so many wouldn’t have lost themselves. It takes a man to know men and all the wickedness mixed up in their flesh and blood. There’s your mother, Denas––God bless her!”
Joan came strolling forward to meet them, her large, handsome face beaming and shining with love and pride. But she was immediately sensitive to the troubled, angry atmosphere in which her husband and child walked, and she looked into John’s face with the inquiry in her eyes.
19
“Denas is vexed about Roland Tresham, mother.”
“There then, I thought Denas had more sense than to trouble herself or you, father, with the like of him. Your new frock is home, Denas, and pretty enough, my dear. Go and look at it before it be too dim to see.”
Denas was glad to escape to her room, and Penelles turned suddenly silent and said no more until he had smoked another pipe on his own door-step.
Then he went into the cottage and sat down. Joan was by the fire with her knitting in her hand, and softly humming to herself her favourite hymn:
| “When quiet in my house I sit.” |
Penelles let her finish, and then he told her all that he saw and all that he thought and every word he and Denas had spoken. “And I said what was right, didn’t I, Joan?” he asked.
“No words at all are sometimes better than good words, John. When the wicked was before him, even David didn’t dare to say good and right words.”
“David wasn’t a St. Penfer fisherman, Joan, and the wicked men of his day were a different kind of wicked men––they just thought of a bad thing and went and did it. They didn’t plot and plan how to make others wicked for them and with them.”
“What do you know wrong of Roland Tresham, John?”
“What do I know wrong of Trelawny’s little Jersey